Tesla Robotaxi Testing Continues, Baidu Partners with Uber and Lyft

Baidu's Apollo Go robotaxi unit began road testing in London on July 28, 2026, the first time China's autonomous-driving technology has hit UK streets. The London partner is Freenow, the European ride-hailing app owned by LYFT, not UBER: Apollo Go's RT6 vehicles are running with safety operators aboard in Brent, northwest London, across urban and suburban routes.

The trial follows talks with Transport for London and the UK's Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles. Baidu and Freenow plan to fold the RT6 into Freenow's app alongside taxis and private-hire cars, and open the service to public riders in 2027 if regulators approve.

Uber's tie-up with Baidu is a separate deal from mid-2025 to put Apollo Go vehicles on Uber's platform outside the US and mainland China, with rollouts so far in Asia and the Middle East, including Dubai in February 2026. That deal does not extend to the UK, so this week's test is a Freenow partnership, not a joint Uber-and-Lyft one.

TSLA is running its own robotaxi buildout in parallel, on a smaller footprint: its service is limited to Austin, Texas, where some vehicles now operate without an onboard safety monitor, while Bay Area cars still carry a human safety driver under California law.

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