Tech Unheard Alex Kendall: On Driving Wayve From The Garage Onto City Streets
May 29, 2025
Alex Kendall, Co-founder and CEO of Wayve, shares his journey from writing a PhD thesis to leading a cutting-edge company in self-driving cars. He discusses the revolutionary approach of using end-to-end machine learning for autonomous driving and the challenges of scaling from a garage startup to a global team. Kendall dives into the intricacies of AI development, the shift from AV 1.0 to AV 2.0, and the critical role of regulations like the UK's Automated Vehicles Act 2024, while teasing exciting future collaborations with major automakers.
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Smooth Autonomous Drive Demo
- In 2023, Alex Kendall demonstrated Wayve's AI driving from Stansted Airport to central London smoothly enough for passengers to relax and even nap.
- This exemplifies the progress from assisted to highly competent autonomous driving in complex urban conditions.
Driving as High-Dimensional AI
- Wayve treats autonomous driving as a high-dimensional AI decision-making problem that requires deep learning for generalization.
- Their foundation model can adapt to diverse environments, vehicles, and sensor sets worldwide.
Choosing End-to-End Learning
- Alex chose to pioneer end-to-end deep learning for driving rather than hand-coding robotic systems.
- His vision is for intelligent machines that safely coexist within society by making their own decisions.