British autonomous driving startup Wayve is set to establish a testing and development hub in Germany as it prepares to deploy self-driving vehicles in Europes largest automotive market.Wayves new hub will be built near Stuttgart, home to big name car brands including Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Audi. Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve, called it the perfect place for the company to accelerate the development and testing of AI-powered driving technology.2025 is a year of global expansion for Wayve, and we are incredibly excited to establish operations in Germany, said Kendall.Wayve is already testing its technology in the UK and the US. The startups newtesting hub in Baden-Wrttemberg will focus on refining its Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) features, including lane change assistance, and advancing automated driving technology. The site also offers access to Germanys deep pool of software engineering talent, key to the companys development efforts.Founded in Cambridge in 2017, Wayve fits a regular car with a range of cameras and sensors that interpret the surrounding environment. This data gets fed to Wayves so-called embodied AI system.Group BundlesUnlike many other self-driving AI models, which have to be trained on each possible driving scenario and are confined to geofenced limits, Wayves AI is more free to act and learn on its own. The more the AI drives, the better it becomes at responding to hazards.Wayves approach to autonomous driving is similar to Teslas. But unlike Elon Musks firm, Wayve will sell its technology directly to carmakers. This means you wont have to buy a Tesla to access top spec self-driving tech.I look forward to partnering with Germanys world-leading manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers to bring safe, scalable, and production-ready AI software to vehicles worldwide, said Kendall.The news follows Wayves mega $1bn raise in May the largest-ever single investment in a European AI startup.SoftBank led the Series C round alongside tech giants Nvidia and Microsoft.Wayve is a singularly important company for Europe, Suranga Chandratillake, partner at Balderton and an early investor in Wayve, told TNW at the time.Embodied AI will be the next big frontier of artificial intelligence bringing machine intelligence to the physical world around us and not just the computer screen that large language models are confined to.The approach has also attracted attention in the US. In August, Wayve secured a strategic investment from Uber, which is integrating autonomous driving tech into its fleet of taxis. Story by Sin Geschwindt Sin is a climate and energy reporter at TNW. From nuclear fusion to escooters, he covers the length and breadth of Europe's clean tech ecos (show all) Sin is a climate and energy reporter at TNW. From nuclear fusion to escooters, he covers the length and breadth of Europe's clean tech ecosystem. He's happiest sourcing a scoop, investigating the impact of emerging technologies, and even putting them to the test. Sin has five years journalism experience and holds a dual degree in media and environmental science from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Get the TNW newsletterGet the most important tech news in your inbox each week.Also tagged with