Wayve Secures Stellantis Contract to Deploy AI-Driven Hands-Free System by 2028

New updates have been reported about Wayve.

Wayve has secured a major commercial contract with Stellantis to supply its AI-based hands-free driving technology for vehicles targeted to launch in North America starting in 2028. The deal, announced at Stellantis’ investor day, follows Wayve’s recent $1.2 billion Series D round that brought in strategic capital from Stellantis, Nissan, and existing backers including Microsoft, Nvidia, and Uber, underscoring growing OEM confidence in its adaptable autonomy platform.

CEO Alex Kendall said the agreement is structured to deliver technology at scale across Stellantis’ broad portfolio, leveraging Wayve’s end-to-end neural network system that is not dependent on specific sensors, chips, or high-definition maps. This architecture lets Stellantis reuse existing compute and sensor configurations, an efficiency that could prove critical as the automaker pursues a $70 billion turnaround plan and prepares to launch 11 new models in North America by 2030.

Wayve will initially provide a hands-off, eyes-on assisted driving product comparable to Tesla’s supervised Full Self-Driving, with a prototype for Stellantis reportedly built in about two months and achieving basic on-road performance in a matter of weeks. Kendall emphasized that the same AI model is designed to generalize across vehicle shapes, sizes, geographies, and compute stacks, positioning Wayve as a scalable supplier across Stellantis’ 14 brands as well as other OEM partners.

While Stellantis has not specified which models will integrate Wayve’s system or whether it will extend to lower-priced vehicles, the startup’s hardware-agnostic approach is aimed at cost-sensitive automakers seeking software-led differentiation without expensive bespoke sensor suites. For Wayve, this partnership adds a second global automaker to its commercial roster, strengthening its path to revenue, de-risking its capital-intensive roadmap, and creating a platform for future products including fully driverless systems for robotaxis or consumer vehicles.

The collaboration also has strategic implications for Wayve’s broader market positioning, as it demonstrates that its AI stack can be industrialized within incumbent OEM programs under tight timelines. If deployment proceeds as planned, the Stellantis rollout could serve as a proof point of scalable, map-free autonomy and enhance Wayve’s negotiating leverage with other manufacturers evaluating next-generation assisted and automated driving solutions.