UK-based startup Wayve announced this week that they’ve partnered with Mercedes-Benz to integrate their autonomous driving system into future Mercedes vehicles.
The partnership follows Mercedes-Benz’s investment in Wayve’s Series D funding round earlier this year, and builds on a technical partnership between the two over several years. The goal of the latest development is to enable point-to-point driving assistance for their customers within two years.
Wayve’s AI Driver was integrated into the Mercedes-Benz production system architecture using their hardware, MB.OS operating system, and map interfaces. Wayve claims this proves the potential for application in future Mercedes-Benz’s vehicles, and sets the foundation for mass production development.
Jörg Burzer, Chief Technology Officer of Mercedes-Benz, said: “This partnership marks the world’s first integration of the Wayve AI Driver in the premium segment, expanding the availability of advanced urban and highway point-to-point driving assistance. Together with Wayve, we are laying the foundation to roll out this technology worldwide and deliver an outstanding driving experience to a broader range of customers.”
Alex Kendall, Co-founder and CEO of Wayve, added: “We’re incredibly excited to be partnering with Mercedes-Benz, an iconic company with a strong reputation for automotive innovation and engineering excellence.
“The pace and depth of our development work together reflect a deep technical alignment between our teams, integrating Wayve’s embodied intelligence with Mercedes-Benz’s vehicle engineering and safety expertise. We couldn’t be prouder to build the future of autonomous driving together.”
Wayve’s AV20 approach sees the AI Driver learn to drive in the same way a human does, adapting to its surroundings without HD maps. The architecture enables autonomy generalises to new cities and driving environments without geofences or city-specific retraining. The AI Driver is designed to scale across the autonomy spectrum from advanced driver assistance to fully driverless products – offering automakers a single, evolving solution for their vehicle line-up, from consumer cars to robotaxis.
