Waymo robotaxis head to London

PLUS: BYD to build Apple's tabletop bot

AuthorAuthor

Jennifer Mossalgue & Rowan Cheung
October 16, 2025

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Waymo is bringing its robotaxis to London in 2026, betting that post-Brexit Britain will greenlight autonomy faster than its EU neighbors.

Is London ready to swap black cabs for algorithmically piloted Jaguars?

In today’s robotics rundown:

  • London gets Waymo robotaxis in 2026

  • Apple to build tabletop robot in Vietnam

  • Coco Robotics hires UCLA AI expert

  • Morgan Stanley’s top picks for Chinese robotics

  • Quick hits on other robotics news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

WAYMO

Image source: Waymo

The Rundown: Waymo is bringing its robotaxis to London in 2026, the company’s boldest international expansion since launching in Tokyo, and a calculated bet that the UK will roll out the regulatory red carpet faster than the rest of Europe.

The details:

  • The fleet will run on all-electric Jaguar I-Pace SUVs outfitted with Waymo’s full sensor suite and proprietary autonomy stack.

  • Waymo laid the groundwork by acquiring UK simulation specialist Latent Logic in 2019 and building an Oxford engineering hub focused on virtual testing.

  • Nigerian mobility giant Moove will handle fleet operations, charging infrastructure, and vehicle management.

  • The rides will launch with safety drivers behind the wheel, then graduate to driverless operation assuming UK regulators sign off on full autonomy permits.

Why it matters: London isn't just another city — it’s Waymo’s test of whether its tech can handle left-hand traffic, densely layered infrastructure built over centuries, and a driving culture nothing like the U.S. If it works, Europe’s robotaxi market cracks open; if it stalls in regulatory limbo, Waymo’s international expansion stalls with it.

APPLE

Image source: Apple Machine Learning Research

The Rundown: Apple will manufacture its first tabletop robot in Vietnam through a partnership with Chinese EV giant BYD — the first time Cupertino has launched an entirely new product category outside China, Bloomberg reports.

The details:

  • Built for Apple’s emerging smart-home stack, the robot pairs a motorized arm with sensors that let it autonomously reposition itself based on user movement.

  • BYD will handle full assembly, testing, and packaging in Vietnam, which already churns out iPads, AirPods, and MacBooks for Apple’s diversified supply chain.

  • The hardware centers on an iPad-sized display mounted to a robotic arm with 360-degree swivel and multi-axis articulation that tracks users through a room.

  • Apple envisions it as an AI companion, powered by a rebuilt Siri that responds with emotive on-screen avatars instead of disembodied voice prompts.

Why it matters: Slated for 2027, the tabletop bot follows Apple’s 2026 smart home hub and indoor security camera, both also Vietnam-built. The move isn't just about leaving China behind but a bet that robotics, not just wearables or AR, will anchor Apple’s next decade of hardware. If the gamble pays off, Siri might finally get a body.

COCO ROBOTICS

Image source: Coco Robotics

The Rundown: UCLA computer vision luminary Bolei Zhou — whose embodied intelligence research is among the field’s most cited — is leaving academia to become chief AI scientist at Coco Robotics, leading the LA startup’s new Physical AI Lab.

The details:

  • Coco operates one of the world’s largest autonomous sidewalk fleets, delivering food and groceries emission-free across dense urban grids.

  • Zhou's lab will mine telemetry from Coco’s bots, which have logged 500K+ real-world deliveries, to train models for chaotic urban edge cases.

  • Coco’s strategy is to transition from teleoperated bots to fully autonomous street vehicles, leveraging Zhou’s expertise in micromobility for dense cities.

  • Coco plans to keep breakthroughs in-house while scaling its fleet past 10K units by late 2026 — a 10x jump that could cement its lead in the last-mile race.

Why it matters: Backed by Sam Altman, Coco has quietly become the largest operator of autonomous delivery bots in the U.S., with deployments in LA, Miami, Chicago, and Helsinki. Zhou’s hire signals a strategic pivot — leveraging half a million delivery runs’ worth of data to leapfrog competitors while still burning cash on simulation.

CHINESE ROBOTICS

Image source: Geekplus

The Rundown: China deployed 295K industrial robots last year, claiming 54% of every robot installed worldwide. Morgan Stanley is betting two homegrown players —Inovance and Geekplus — will turn that dominance into market power.

The details:

  • China’s robotics market will more than double from $47B in 2024 to $108B by 2028, driven by generative AI, smart manufacturing, and state backing.

  • Inovance supplies the critical infrastructure — motors, drives, and controllers — that powers China’s smart-factory expansion at scale.

  • Geekplus serves Walmart, Adidas, and Unilever and is expected to hit profitability in 2025 after years of aggressive global expansion.

  • Analysts cite Geekplus’s edge: pricing 30% below Western rivals and supply chains built to fend off U.S. tariffs.

Why it matters: China’s robot revolution isn’t just about deployment scale but vertically integrated companies iterating faster and pricing more aggressively than rivals can match. If Morgan Stanley’s thesis holds, the next decade of warehouse automation will ship from Shenzhen with a price tag Silicon Valley can’t beat.

QUICK HITS

Figure founder Brett Adcock told Marc Benioff that his robotics company is “building a new species,” describing a future for humanoids that borders on science fiction.

Chinese actuator supplier Sanhua Intelligent Controls reportedly landed a $685M order from Tesla to supply key components for the Optimus humanoid.

German robotics company NEURA Robotics launched NEURA Gym, a large-scale physical AI training ground where robots learn by real-world interaction.

Lightyear Robotics launched the M1, its first wheeled-legged robot featuring a parallel joint drive module for a 40% efficiency boost over traditional designs.

Caltech unveiled X1, the world’s first multirobot system that enables a humanoid to deploy a transforming drone, capable of launching from the humanoid’s back.

Diligent Robotics, maker of the Moxi hospital robot, is in talks with senior living operators to pilot its tech beyond hospitals to the $900B U.S. senior living market.

Dexory, the London-based provider of AI-driven warehouse intelligence and autonomous robotics, raised $165M to accelerate global expansion.

Indian autonomous delivery startup Airbound just raised $8.65M to build blended-wing-body drones that can deliver medical supplies without airports.

MIT’s CSAIL and Toyota Research Institute built “steerable scene generation,” an AI system to rapidly create millions of physics‑realistic 3D training environments.

Revolute Robotics, a Scottsdale-based startup developing hybrid ground-and-aerial robots capable of both driving and flying, raised $1.9M.

The Robotin R2, billed as the world’s first fully autonomous carpet-cleaning robot, is available now for $799 on Kickstarter.

COMMUNITY

That's it for today!

Before you go we'd love to know what you thought of today's newsletter to help us improve The Rundown experience for you.

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

See you soon,

Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team