Stellantis will integrate Wayve’s artificial intelligence technology into its STLA AutoDrive platform to bring Level 2++ hands-free assisted driving to future group models, with the ability to operate both on highways and in urban areas.
The first application is expected in North America in 2028, in the form of supervised “door-to-door” automated driving designed to assist the driver along mixed routes that include city streets, intersections, traffic and difficult-to-predict situations.
Stellantis targets hands-free urban driving with Wayve technology
The system does not qualify as full autonomous driving. The driver will remain responsible for the vehicle at all times and must keep active supervision. However, compared with current driver assistance systems, the difference should come from the software’s behavior, designed to react less rigidly and more like a human driver when facing real road situations.
At the center of Wayve’s technology is Wayve AI Driver, an end-to-end artificial intelligence system that learns from data collected during real-world driving. This approach should allow the system to improve progressively over time, adapting to different vehicles, markets and highly variable road conditions.
Stellantis will integrate the technology into the STLA AutoDrive architecture, using its own engineering capacity to make the system scalable across the group’s different brands.
Development appears to be moving quickly. Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve, said the teams from the two companies managed to integrate Wayve AI Driver onto Stellantis platforms and create a working prototype in less than two months. That pace suggests a strong level of technical compatibility between the two architectures. The collaboration follows a recent strategic investment by Stellantis in Wayve and moves the relationship between the two companies from evaluation to operational development.
Ned Curic, Stellantis Chief Engineering and Technology Officer, explained that the group wants to focus on technologies capable of changing the way customers experience driving. According to Stellantis, the integration with Wayve’s AI-first approach should enable more intuitive and smoother hands-free assistance than the systems currently available on the market.
