As robotaxi services steadily pop up in cities around the world, autonomous driving technology in commercial passenger vehicles has been slow to catch up.
Stellantis, the parent company of Jeep, Ram, Dodge, Fiat and several other car brands, is the latest automaker to announce plans to add more advanced automated driving technology to its vehicles.
The company announced a new strategic technology partnership with UK-based startup Wayve on Thursday. The partnership aims to integrate Wayve’s AI Driver system into Stellantis’ STLA AutoDrive platform.
This could eventually equip some Stellantis vehicles with hands-free, supervised driving technology that works on both city streets and highways, similar to the systems already available in Tesla and Rivian vehicles. Stellantis and Wayve describe this first iteration as a Level 2++ system, meaning drivers would still have to pay attention to the road and monitor the vehicle while driving.
The first vehicle integration is planned for North America in 2028. Stellantis says the platform can support more advanced automated driving features in the future as regulations and customer expectations evolve.
“This agreement marks an important next step for Wayve and Stellantis in expanding our technology together,” said Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve, in a Press release. “Our teams have already demonstrated how quickly the Wayve AI Driver can be integrated into Stellantis vehicle platforms, generating a prototype in less than two months.”
While it’s not yet known which specific brands or models would get the technology first, Wayve developed a prototype with Stellantis in just a few weeks on the company’s Jeep Cherokee platform.
Founded in 2017, the London startup makes autonomous driving software that learns from real-world traffic using cameras and machine learning. In theory, this eliminates the need for detailed maps that your competitors rely on. Instead of building its own self-driving cars, Wayve is focusing on software, which it claims is vehicle agnostic, meaning it can be adapted to work in everything from passenger cars to delivery vans.
The lively startup announced earlier this year that it had closed an investment of 1.2 billion dollars Series D investment round with a variety of investors including SoftBank, Microsoft, NVIDIAand Uber. And just last month, Advanced Micro Devices, Arm and Qualcomm Ventures announced a separate business $60 million investment in the company.
Uber’s investment will specifically support Wayve-powered robotaxis on the Uber platform. The companies intend to launch their first service in London in 2026, with plans to expand to multiple markets.
nissan has also signed up to use Wayve technology. In December, the automaker announced it would integrate Wayve’s technology into a wide range of its cars starting in 2027.
