Baidu Apollo Go London road testing is now under way in the borough of Brent, with human safety operators at the wheel and a public launch pencilled in for 2027, subject to regulatory approval. The announcement, dated 28 July 2026, puts Baidu and its partner Freenow by Lyft into a field that already includes Waymo and the Uber-Wayve alliance. London, it turns out, is everyone’s favourite proving ground right now.
The vehicles rolling through Brent are Baidu’s purpose-built RT6 robotaxis, operating under the Apollo Go brand. Under the partnership structure, Lyft’s investor newsroom confirmed that Apollo Go supplies the vehicles and the autonomous driving technology, while Freenow by Lyft handles local operational expertise. Initial deployments were planned for Germany and the United Kingdom in 2026, with the fleet eventually scaling to thousands of vehicles across Europe.
Baidu Apollo Go London Testing: What Is Actually on the Road
For now, dozens of test vehicles are confined to Brent. There is no passenger service yet, and the companies have not given a tighter timeline than 2027 for public access. That launch remains conditional on regulatory sign-off from, among others, Transport for London and the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV).
When it does arrive, the service will follow a hybrid-network model: human taxi and private-hire drivers working alongside the robotaxis on the same platform. Freenow by Lyft’s CEO, Thomas Zimmermann, framed this carefully. ‘As a platform with deep roots in the taxi industry, our priority is ensuring that autonomous technology supports the professional drivers who keep London moving,’ he said. Uber and Wayve have described their forthcoming London service in almost identical terms. The phrase ‘hybrid network’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting across the industry right now.
Baidu’s Co-founder and CEO Robin Li called the Lyft partnership ‘a significant milestone in our global journey’ when the deal was first announced. The London testing adds momentum to that claim. Apollo Go also received Hong Kong’s first fully driverless trial permit on 23 July 2026, with testing beginning there on 27 July, one day before the London announcement.
The Freenow Acquisition and What Lyft Is Building Towards
Lyft acquired Freenow from BMW Group and Mercedes-Benz Mobility, with the deal announced on 16 April 2025 for approximately $197 million, subject to regulatory clearance. Freenow operates across 9 European countries and over 180 cities, covering taxis, private hire, carsharing, e-scooters, e-bikes, e-mopeds, and public transport in a single app.
The numbers behind the deal are worth a look. According to Lyft’s 8-K filing, Freenow delivered gross bookings of over €1 billion in 2024 and was Adjusted EBITDA positive at the time of the announcement. Lyft’s own stated target is a 15% compound annual growth rate in gross bookings, aiming for approximately $25 billion by 2027, and the filing frames the Freenow acquisition as consistent with that trajectory.
In other words, the robotaxi ambitions and the ride-hailing roll-up are the same strategy viewed from different angles.
The Regulatory Backdrop That Will Decide the Real Timeline
The UK’s regulatory framework is moving, but not at robotaxi speed. The government opened applications for self-driving passenger service operators on 22 May 2026, a process jointly announced by the Department for Transport, the CCAV, and Roads Minister Simon Lightwood MP, covering both taxi-style and bus-style autonomous vehicles across Great Britain, according to Cars of the Future.
The legal scaffolding underneath that process is the Automated Vehicles Act 2024. Jones Day’s analysis of the Self-Driving Pilot Scheme notes that Part 5 of the Act, governing Automated Passenger Services permits, came into effect on 15 May 2026, while the wider regime is not expected to be fully in force until late 2027. Northern Ireland sits outside the scheme entirely, maintaining its own highway code and road-safety legislation.
So the 2027 public-launch target that Baidu and Freenow by Lyft are pointing to lands almost exactly when the full legal framework is expected to be operational. That is either very precise planning or a sensible hedge, and the companies are not saying which.
Waymo started London tests in April. Uber and Wayve have an interest list open. Baidu Apollo Go London testing is now live in Brent. The question is not whether robotaxis are coming to London; it is which regulatory clock runs faster than the commercial one.
