Along with FiveAI in the driverless car project are Direct Line, Oxford University, TfL and the Transport Research Laboratory.

The Departments for Business and Transport have given the group £12.8m to research and develop self-driving technology ahead of a trial in London.

It aims to develop a driverless taxi that can be summoned from a smartphone by Q3 2019.

FiveAI wants to raise more money and grow headcount from 20 to 120 over the next two years.

So far it has been testing cars on private tracks. The strength of UK expertise in AI and computer vision is thought to be  major enabler,

“It’s about delivering to the consumer an autonomous Uber-type service in London,” says Borland, “it’s insane for people to buy a car and then leave it parked for 94% of the time and only have one user per car, in the future vehicles can be shared.”

Among others testing driverless cars in London is Nissan.