Alphabet‘s Waymo is bringing its driverless ride-hailing services to London, the first European market for its robotaxi.

The company said in a release on Wednesday that it plans to start test drives on London’s roads in coming months, with human safety specialists at the wheel. It intends to open its robotaxi service next year, assuming it can get permissions from regulators as well as local and national leaders.

London will mark the company’s second international city after Tokyo, where testing began in early 2025.

Waymo has been aggressively expanding in the U.S., and now offers a commercial service in the Los Angeles area, Phoenix, San Francisco, Atlanta and Austin, Texas. The company has also announced plans to start robotaxi services in Miami and Washington, D.C., and said in August that it obtained permits to begin testing its autonomous vehicles with trained safety drivers on board in New York City.

In London, Waymo’s fleet will be comprised of Jaguar iPACE electric vehicles equipped with the company’s Waymo Driver autonomous systems. Waymo said it already employs engineering teams in Oxford and London, and that it plans to work with Moove to handle operations and maintenance for its fleet.

Moove provides vehicle financing to drivers who want to purchase a new vehicle for ride-hailing, and offers services like cleaning, some repairs and charging of electric vehicles to transportation businesses including Waymo and Uber, which is an investor in the startup.

In June, the U.K. announced an accelerated framework for commercial pilots by AV ventures, an effort to bring self-driving investments to the region. London also established a “Vision Zero” goal earlier this year to eliminate all serious injuries and deaths in its transportation systems by 2041.

Waymo says its system “is involved in five times fewer injury-causing collisions, and twelve times fewer injury-causing collisions with pedestrians compared to humans,” according to the company’s analysis of its own data.

The company has also reported that its self-driving vehicles have logged 100 million “fully autonomous miles” on public roads, and provided more than 10 million paid rides to passengers to-date.

Waymo is part of Alphabet’s “Other Bets” segment, which brought in revenue of $373 million in the second quarter on a loss of $1.25 billion. Alphabet plans to report third-quarter results on Oct. 29.

Wayve, a U.K.-based startup backed by SoftBank and Microsoft, previously announced that it plans to bring a robotaxi commercial pilot to London next year. While Waymo uses radar, lidar and other sophisticated sensors in its vehicles, Wayve is developing camera-based systems, an approach that’s similar to Tesla’s pursuits.

— CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

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Autonomous driving firms Pony.ai and WeRide have received approval from China’s securities regulator for secondary listings in Hong Kong, as the companies look to raise funds and continue their global expansion. 

The China Securities Regulatory Commission announced Tuesday that both companies had filed to issue and list shares in Hong Kong. Chinese companies seeking a foreign listing are required to file an application with the CSRC in advance, giving the regulators final say on whether the company can go public overseas.

Pony.ai and WeRide, which are already listed in the United States, can issue about 102 million new shares each for their Hong Kong listings.

WeRide has tapped Morgan Stanley and China International Capital Corporation to work on the listing, according to a Reuters report. Neither WeRide nor Pony.ai immediately responded to CNBC’s inquiry on their IPO plans. 

Pony.ai CEO James Peng had told CNBC in July that the company was exploring a Hong Kong listing. Hong Kong would offer “close proximity” to the company’s home market of China, which is something that would interest a lot of investors, Peng said. 

Pony.ai and WeRide, both headquartered in Guangzhou, are amongst a growing wave of Chinese companies seeking secondary listings in Hong Kong, in what has been a bounce-back year for the city’s IPO market.

The Chinese companies’ move to dual list also comes as they expand their presence to new regions, including the Middle East, Europe and Asian countries such as Singapore, although they have yet to receive full approvals to operate their robotaxis in most of those regions. 

In the U.S., both companies have partnered with Uber, with hopes of deploying their robotaxis on the firm’s ride-hailing platform after receiving approval. In China, they have already begun operating fully autonomous robotaxis in major cities, which can be hailed via their respective apps. 

The companies have smaller autonomous vehicle fleets when compared to more established players such as Baidu‘s Apollo Go in China and Alphabet‘s Waymo in the U.S.

Pony.ai launched its IPO in November with shares priced at $13 apiece — the stock has gained more than 60% since. WeRide debuted on the Nasdaq, with the IPO priced at $15.50 a share in October 2024, and its stock has lost over 30% so far.

U.S. stocks had a rocky day of trading, swinging from highs to lows like the quality of Game of Thrones across its eight seasons.

At its lowest during the session, the S&P 500 fell as much as 1.5%, but recovered and traded positively for most of the day after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer hinted that China’s next trade move could influence how President Donald Trump’s tariffs are implemented.

The optimism in markets fizzled, however, when Trump said he was considering “terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil” and other forms of punitive measures, citing Beijing’s halt of U.S. soybean purchases since May. Investors seemed to take that threat seriously, sending the S&P 500 down 0.2% for the day.

Developments elsewhere, however, were more encouraging. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested that the central bank might stop tightening monetary policy concerning its bond holdings. Meanwhile, major banks — bellwethers for economic activity — such as JPMorgan Chase, Citi and Goldman Sachs, beat earnings expectations, suggesting that the economy’s fundamentals remain intact.

And while Oracle’s pivot to AMD’s artificial intelligence chips — a move away from Nvidia graphics processing units — may not thrill Jensen Huang, it reduces concentration risk and strengthens the case for investors banking on AI to continue the market rally.

Still, Trump’s rhetoric overshadowed everything else. The question, then, is whether his trade brinkmanship will derail the AI-fueled market — or if the Magnificent Seven kingdom will stand.

Trump threatens China with cooking oil embargo. That’s in response to Beijing halting its purchases of U.S. soybeans since May. Whether 100% tariffs on China come into effect depends on how the country reacts, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Tuesday.

Prices in China fall more than expected in September. The consumer price index declined 0.3% from a year earlier, steeper than the 0.2% drop forecast by economists. However, core CPI rose 1% year on year, the highest since February 2024, according to Wind Information.

ChatGPT will soon allow ‘erotica’ for adults. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced the major policy shift Tuesday, saying that it’s part of the company’s “treat adult users like adults” principle. The company previously prohibited most adult content on its chatbot.

U.S. stocks were mixed. On Tuesday, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell but recovered from session lows. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, however, closed in the green. Asia-Pacific markets traded higher Wednesday. South Korea’s Kospi index jumped more than 2.5%.

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Chinese firms pull back from listing in the U.S. as Hong Kong IPOs see a surge

Chinese initial public offerings in the U.S. have slumped 4% year on year in terms of deal value so far this year, raising just $875.7 million from 23 deals. Meanwhile, Chinese IPOs in Hong Kong this year have surged 164% year on year, raising $18.4 billion from 56 listings, Dealogic data showed.

One major snarl for Chinese companies interested in U.S. listings is Beijing’s tight control of the IPO process. A growing number of U.S.-listed Chinese companies are also looking at Hong Kong amid rising delisting risks in the U.S., a trend that’s giving an extra boost to the city’s sizzling market.

— Anniek Bao