'Like a ghost behind the wheel': KT tries fully driverless Uber ride in Abu Dhabi

The steering wheel twitched first. Then it began to turn — slowly, deliberately — even though the driver’s seat was completely empty. For a moment, it felt like a ghost had slipped behind the wheel, guiding the car out of the parking bay as the dashboard lit up with a calm voice announcing the start of the trip.

This was inside a fully autonomous Uber test ride in Abu Dhabi — no safety driver, no human intervention, just a sensor-stacked electric vehicle navigating Yas Island on its own. Uber invited Khaleej Times for one of the first passenger test runs ahead of the service’s public launch, as Abu Dhabi will become the first city outside the US and China to offer fully driverless rides.

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Inside, the car behaved with measured confidence: easing over speed bumps, pausing for merging traffic, and giving wide space to pedestrians. The wheel kept rotating itself with quiet precision, while a screen displayed every decision — lane changes, turns, braking — in real time.

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That quiet choreography took years in the making. “WeRide has been operating here since 2021 - there’s been a lot of non-passenger testing happening,” said Mohamad Jardaneh, Head of Autonomous Mobility, Middle East at Uber. 

The ride comes just as Abu Dhabi has officially authorised the commercial use of fully driverless vehicles for the first time. The Integrated Transport Centre (ITC) announced on Tuesday the launch of commercial operations for fully driverless, Level 4 autonomous vehicles in the Emirate — the first such deployment in the Middle East and North Africa.

As part of this framework, ITC has granted the first two operating permits for commercial driverless fleets. Phase one includes operations by WeRide, in collaboration with Uber and Tawasul, and by AutoGo–K2 with ApolloGo–Baidu, following the completion of all safety, readiness and real-world traffic testing requirements.

WeRide Robotaxis have accumulated over 800,000 kilometres of testing in Abu Dhabi as of October 2025 — including fully driverless Level 4 testing since the second quarter of the year — with each vehicle completing up to 20 trips during a 12-hour shift. The Uber–WeRide fleet now forms the largest commercial robotaxi network in the Middle East, covering roughly 50 per cent of Abu Dhabi’s core area.

Even with the permit, Jardaneh stressed that the rollout will be gradual. “It won’t be [all autonomous] immediately. It will progressively expand,” he said. “You start with a fraction of the fleet, probably also limited geography as well, and then over time that will expand.”

For now, autonomous-capable trips (with safety drivers) are available on Uber in Yas Island, Abu Dhabi Airport and Al Maryah Island, with Uber’s system automatically assigning an AV when both pick-up and drop-off fall inside WeRide’s designated zones.

Safety first — and no remote driving

The ride itself showed how tightly safety is woven into the system. The car refused to start until seatbelts were secured. Opening the door mid-ride triggered an automatic pullover. Smoking inside the car is technically impossible — any attempt forces the vehicle to stop.

“If the car needs help, it will pull over,” Jardaneh explained. Support teams remain ready nearby, and a remote operations centre monitors every vehicle — though he emphasised that no human can drive it from afar. “Remote driving doesn’t actually exist… latency would be dangerous.”

The greater promise, he argued, lies in removing human-error risk altogether. “AVs don’t get tired. They don’t get distracted,” he explained.

Weather, price and future expansion

Extreme heat has been part of years of local testing, and sensors are built to handle it. Severe dust or fog, however, pause operations. “If they haven’t tested their vehicles in dusty conditions, we’re going to turn off AVs,” Jardaneh said, noting the regular fleet remains available during such periods.

Pricing mirrors existing Uber categories. “If your starting point and endpoint are supported by an autonomous route… fare is the same as with our X/Comfort,” he said, with an “autonomous-only” option also priced at Comfort levels.

Global appetite is rising, with more than 1.5 million autonomous Uber trips completed worldwide. Locally, Jardaneh said rider feedback during the safety-driver phase has been highly positive, especially among younger users.

A quiet look at the future

As the ride neared its destination, the vehicle slowed, pulled into a permitted zone, and came to a soft halt before releasing the door locks. The wheel, which had been turning continuously on its own, finally stilled. It was an ordinary Uber drop-off — except that no one had been driving.

Now that the required regulation has been issued, Abu Dhabi will soon allow residents to book this same ghost-steered ride directly through the Uber app. And while human and autonomous drivers will “continue to grow hand in hand,” as Jardaneh put it, our quiet, self-directed journey offers a clear sign of what commuting in the capital is about to become.

Haneen Dajani

haneen@khaleejtimes.com

Haneen Dajani is special correspondent in Abu Dhabi with over 15 years of reporting experience. She’s also a passionate athlete, full Ironman finisher, and mountaineer who loves to embark on unusual challenges.