Your Next Uber Might Be A Lucid Robotaxi

Uber is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in EV maker Lucid and autonomous driving startup Nuro in a massive deal that will see 20K robotaxis in the U.S. over the next six years starting with the first city in 2026.

The details:

• Piloting this ambitious plan is Lucid’s upcoming Gravity SUV, a luxury SUV starting at $79K, outfitted with Nuro’s Level 4 autonomy suite. 
• Nuro’s fleet of vehicles currently operates in California and Texas, with 1M autonomous miles traveled without any major safety incidents.
• The robotaxi experience will be exclusive to Uber’s app, leveraging its routing and delivery infrastructure, with the ride-hailing giant investing $300M in Lucid.
• Fleet ownership falls to Uber, and Las Vegas is ground zero for prototype testing, with the first public deployment city set to be revealed in 2026.

The fleet will be owned by Uber or a third-party fleet management partner and the first vehicles will launch in as-yet-to-be-determined US city in 2026.

“This is a very, very big deal,” Dave Ferguson, co-founder and president of Nuro, said in an interview. “In terms of the scale and the hard commitments and the meat behind it, it is by far the biggest partnership deal that Uber has announced or done.” Uber is investing $300 million in Lucid, a spokesperson for the automaker, Nick Twork, confirmed. The investment in Nuro will be “significantly more than that,” Ferguson said, though he declined to share an exact figure. As part of the deal, Uber will take a seat on Nuro’s board of directors.

“Autonomous vehicles have enormous potential to transform our cities for the better,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber. “We’re thrilled to partner with Nuro and Lucid on this new robotaxi program, purpose-built just for the Uber platform, to safely bring the magic of autonomous driving to more people across the world.”