Stellantis announced today it will integrate Wayve’s AI-powered automated driving software into the STLA AutoDrive platform, targeting a 2028 launch in North America for hands-free supervised driving that works on both highways and city streets. The partnership builds on Stellantis’ strategic investment in the London-based startup earlier this year.
The system is classified as Level 2++, meaning it requires driver supervision but handles steering, acceleration, and braking in a broader range of environments than current highway-focused systems. Stellantis framed the collaboration as a path toward more advanced automation levels over time, though the company did not commit to a deployment timeline beyond the initial 2028 product.
Wayve raised a Series D round in February 2026 that valued the company at roughly $8.6 billion, with backing from Stellantis, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Uber. The Nissan investment came with its own integration deal: Wayve’s software will power Nissan’s ProPilot system starting in fiscal year 2027, one year ahead of the Stellantis rollout. That makes Stellantis the second major automaker to announce production plans for Wayve’s technology, though Stellantis is positioning the relationship as deeper than a supplier arrangement.
Ned Curic, Stellantis’ Chief Engineering and Technology Officer, described the partnership as combining the STLA AutoDrive platform with Wayve’s AI approach to create “a genuinely intuitive and enjoyable hands-free driving experience.” Wayve CEO Alex Kendall noted that the companies brought up a prototype in less than two months, a timeline intended to demonstrate the flexibility of integrating Wayve’s software across Stellantis’ vehicle platforms.
The STLA AutoDrive platform is designed to deploy across Stellantis’ portfolio, which includes Jeep, Ram, Peugeot, Citroën, and Fiat. The press release emphasized that Wayve’s end-to-end AI approach is hardware-agnostic and mapless, meaning it does not rely on pre-mapped routes or specific sensor configurations. That architecture is supposed to enable faster scaling across geographies and vehicle types, though the announcement did not specify which Stellantis brands or models will receive the technology first.
Several questions remain unanswered. Stellantis has not committed to a deployment timeline beyond the initial 2028 North American launch, and ADAS subscription pricing is undecided. The press release also did not clarify whether the system will be standard equipment, an option package, or a subscription service, nor did it address which sensor suite will support the integration.
The competitive context is crowded. Wayve’s top competitors include Mobileye, Cruise, and Innoviz, and the broader ADAS market is filling with automakers pursuing in-house development, supplier partnerships, and startup acquisitions. Stellantis is taking the partnership route, betting that Wayve’s AI can scale faster than building equivalent capabilities internally.
The 2028 target date gives Stellantis two years after Nissan’s ProPilot launch to validate Wayve’s technology in a production vehicle. Whether that timeline reflects caution or capability is unclear. What is clear: Stellantis is deferring the hardest automation problems to a later phase and shipping supervised hands-free driving first. The question is whether that conservatism will age well or look late.
Source: Stellantis. Images courtesy of Stellantis.
