Stellantis will integrate the Wayve AI Driver into its STLA AutoDrive platform to deliver hands-free, supervised Level 2++ automated driving on highways and city streets, with first vehicles targeted for North America in 2028. The two companies announced the strategic technology partnership today from Amsterdam and London, building on Stellantis’ earlier equity investment in the UK-based AI developer. Stellantis described the agreement in a joint announcement on Wayve’s press site as the next phase of an existing collaboration, pairing Wayve’s end-to-end driving intelligence with STLA AutoDrive’s vehicle integration layer.
Highlights
- First vehicle integration targeted for North America in 2028
- Initial product is hands-free, door-to-door supervised automated driving rated Level 2++, covering both highway and urban environments
- Architecture is designed to evolve toward higher levels of automation over time
- Wayve and Stellantis teams brought up a working prototype on a Stellantis vehicle in under two months, according to Wayve CEO Alex Kendall
What Is Level 2++ and How Does It Differ From Level 3?
Stellantis is positioning the Wayve-powered product as Level 2++, meaning the driver remains responsible for monitoring the road and must be ready to take over at any moment. The “++” signals broader operating coverage than conventional Level 2 systems — door-to-door operation across highway and urban scenarios rather than a highway-only or single-lane assist envelope. The system is supervised throughout; it is not an eyes-off, hands-off Level 3 system.
Stellantis separately offers a Level 3 product, STLA AutoDrive 1.0, which permits hands-free and eyes-off operation up to 37 mph in stop-and-go traffic. The Wayve-integrated product announced today is the Level 2++ tier of the same broader STLA AutoDrive platform, with Stellantis indicating a pathway to higher levels of automation as regulations and customer demand evolve.
STLA AutoDrive as the Common Foundation
STLA AutoDrive is Stellantis’ in-house automated driving platform, designed as a scalable foundation deployable across the company’s brand portfolio — which spans Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS Automobiles, Fiat, Jeep, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, Ram, and Vauxhall, among others. Wayve’s end-to-end AI sits inside that platform, contributing the driving intelligence layer that perceives the environment and plans vehicle behaviour.
According to the companies, Wayve’s approach is designed to generalize across geographies and vehicle types, enabling deployment across multiple markets over time. The companies cited continuous improvement through real-world data and efficient scaling as motivating factors.
Executive Comments
Ned Curic, Stellantis’ Chief Engineering and Technology Officer, framed the partnership in terms of customer experience: “At Stellantis, we focus on technology that fundamentally transforms how our customers interact with their vehicles. Combining our STLA AutoDrive platform with Wayve’s groundbreaking AI-first approach creates a genuinely intuitive and enjoyable hands-free driving experience. This collaboration is a testament to how the right partnerships allow us to scale advanced technology globally while anchoring customer safety and experience at the center.”
Wayve co-founder and CEO Alex Kendall pointed to integration speed as evidence of the architecture’s portability: “This agreement marks an important next step for Wayve and Stellantis in scaling our technology together. Our teams have already demonstrated how quickly the Wayve AI Driver can be integrated across Stellantis’ vehicle platforms, bringing up a prototype in less than 2 months. By combining Wayve’s AI with Stellantis’ engineering expertise, scale, and global reach, we’re accelerating our mission to bring autonomy to any vehicle, anywhere.”
What This Builds On
The agreement extends an existing relationship. Stellantis previously took a strategic equity stake in Wayve, and today’s announcement formalizes a deeper technology integration role. Early development work on Stellantis vehicles is already under way, according to the companies. Wayve, founded in 2017 and headquartered in London, develops hardware-agnostic embodied AI software for automated driving, and has built relationships with multiple OEMs and Tier 1s in parallel to the Stellantis program.
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