MOVE returned to ExCeL London this month for its eighth annual edition, and if the energy in the room was anything to go by, the industry knows it is standing at an inflection point. Two days of sessions spanning autonomous vehicles, commercial EVs and critical supply chains left a clear impression: the hype cycle is over. This is now about execution. Here are our five key takeaways.
Published: 24 June 2026
Authors: Jonathan Smart
1. The robotaxi era has a launch date, and a British company is driving it
The headline announcement of the conference was the three-way partnership between Stellantis, Wayve and Uber to jointly develop and deploy Level 4 driverless robotaxis at global scale. The collaboration brings together Stellantis' vehicle manufacturing, Wayve's AI driving technology, and Uber's global marketplace, three complementary capabilities that no single player could replicate alone.
Stellantis will develop and manufacture the vehicles on Level 4 autonomy-ready platforms, which were on display at MOVE 2026. Wayve, based in King's Cross, provides the AI brains and, crucially, a mapless, self-learning AI system allowing a vehicle to navigate in areas it has never previously visited, giving it a scalability advantage over geofenced rivals. The aim is for these robotaxis to debut in North America sometime in 2028.
That is not to say that those with an eye on Wayve and Uber’s collaborations will not need to wait until then. Initial services (launching in London, Tokyo and 10 further cities starting this year) will run with a safety operator in vehicle before transitioning to fully driverless. The agreement is structured as a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU), establishing a framework for future technology development, licensing, production and vehicle procurement. Businesses in fleet management, insurance and logistics should be watching closely: the commercial and liability architecture of this sector is being written now.
2. The UK Government is consulting – but the window is short
Speaking from the main stage, Minister for Roads and Buses, Simon Lightwood, announced a public consultation on the safety rules that will allow self-driving vehicles to be owned and used on British roads. The draft statement of safety principles outlines 10 requirements that autonomous vehicles must meet before they can be authorised for deployment, with the consultation running until 9 September 2026.
The safety bar is explicitly high: self-driving vehicles must meet a higher standard than the average human driver. This consultation follows the May 2026 launch of a self-driving vehicle pilot scheme, which allows controlled trials of automated taxis, private hire vehicles and bus-style services.
For automotive and transport businesses, this is a live regulatory moment. The Automated Vehicles Act 2024 requires a full lifecycle safety model, allowing for pre- and post-deployment assessment of these vehicles. The question of who bears liability, and how it is evidenced, will be central to every commercial arrangement in this sector. Shoosmiths is actively tracking the consultation and advising clients on responses.
3. The ecosystem model has won
There was a striking consensus at MOVE that no single company can own the entire autonomy stack. OEMs acknowledged they had attempted to build their own AV technology before partnering with providers such as Wayve or Pony.AI, ride-hailing platforms (Uber and Bolt), back-end services providers and government entities to scale internationally.
As Wayve's VP of Commercial put it on stage, there are three routes to market in autonomous vehicles: build the car (Tesla), build the platform (Waymo), or build the technology and license it to partners (Wayve). The licensing model is commercially novel and raises significant questions around IP ownership, technology escrow, data rights and contractual risk allocation that clients structuring these arrangements need to address.
4. Europe and the UK are 10 years behind, and they know it
There are approximately 10,000 autonomous vehicles operating commercially in each of the US and China. In the EU, the figure is probably under 100. The regulatory environment remains a structural constraint. Data sovereignty, GDPR compliance and the absence of a harmonised EU licensing framework add further layers of complexity.
The UK, post-Brexit, can move faster. The AV Act 2024 and the current consultation suggest genuine political intent to do so. However, the gap between legislative ambition and operational deployment remains real. The businesses that engage with the regulatory process now will help shape the framework they ultimately operate within.
5. EVs: the momentum is real, but fragile
Away from autonomy, the EV sessions were characterised by a familiar tension: genuine commercial momentum undercut by policy inconsistency and infrastructure gaps. Many OEMs all pointed to the same structural issues – grid investment, VAT treatment of public charging, upfront cost differentials and unstable residual values, to name a few - as threats to the trajectory the market has spent years building.
On commercial vehicles, the picture is particularly stark: less than 1% of one manufacturer’s sales were reported as electric. The purchase cost of an EV truck remains roughly three times that of an ICE equivalent. Meanwhile, China's dominance of battery manufacturing and rare earth processing, highlighted in a separate session on supply chain resilience, means that European energy transition strategy remains heavily exposed to geopolitical risk.
The call from across the industry was consistent: depoliticise electrification, commit to long-term policy frameworks, and invest in grid infrastructure before momentum stalls.
What does this mean for your business?
The commercial and legal questions flowing from MOVE 2026 are not theoretical. They are live in boardrooms, in procurement teams and in regulatory submissions being prepared right now. From AV liability and data sharing frameworks to EV fleet agreements and supply chain de-risking, Shoosmiths' mobility team advises clients across the full spectrum of this sector.
If you would like to discuss any of the themes raised in this article, please contact Jonathan Smart, Sarah Owbridge or Luke Coleborn.