Uber re-enters the robotaxi industry, partnering with EV manufacturers to deploy more than 20,000 robotaxi over six years

Uber , an American company that provides ride-sharing and food delivery services, has announced that it has signed contracts with Lucid , a California-based electric vehicle manufacturer, and Nuro , an autonomous driving technology development company founded by engineers who spun off from Waymo , to operate robot taxis in major cities in the United States. Uber plans to invest more than $300 million (approximately 44 billion yen) in each company.

Uber Technologies, Inc. - Lucid, Nuro, and Uber Partner on Next-Generation Autonomous Robotaxi Program
https://investor.uber.com/news-events/news/press-release-details/2025/Lucid-Nuro-and-Uber-Partner-on-Next-Generation-Autonomous-Robotaxi-Program/default.aspx

Uber to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Lucid and Nuro in massive robotaxi deal | The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/news/708479/uber-lucid-nuro-robotaxi-deal-investment

Uber has been focusing on the development of self-driving technology since around 2015, and in August 2016, it acquired Otto, a startup developing self-driving trucks. In December of the same year, Uber's self-driving taxi ' uberX ' began operation, but after an accident in which UberX hit and killed a woman and Waymo sued Uber for 'stealing trade secrets,' Uber announced in 2020 that it would sell its self-driving car business, Advanced Technologies Group (ATG), to Aurora Innovation, a startup founded by a former chief engineer of Google's self-driving car development project.

Uber sells self-driving division to startup for $4.2 billion - GIGAZINE

By Dllu

Uber, which sold the division and withdrew from autonomous driving technology development, has been working on the robotaxi business in partnership with other companies since around 2022, rather than developing its own technology in-house. In 2021, Uber announced plans to use autonomous vehicles to carry out some of the delivery work for Uber Eats using technology fromMotional , a company working on developing autonomous vehicles. In 2022, Uber and Waymo formed a partnership to work on a project to put driverless trucks into practical use , and Waymo's fully autonomous vehicles will be available for selection when dispatchingUber Eats and ride sharing services . Uber has transitioned to a system in which it utilizes its own urban transportation data to collaborate with other companies' autonomous driving technologies.

Uber Eats partners with Google's self-driving car company Waymo to start delivery with self-driving cars - GIGAZINE

The partnership with Lucid and Nuro announced by Uber on July 17, 2025, is part of a business partnership with other companies' self-driving technology, and is a project that marks Uber's re-entry into the robotaxi industry for the first time in several years. The vehicle to be used for the robotaxi service, which is scheduled to begin in major US cities in the second half of 2026, will be the new SUV ' Gravity ' that Lucid will sell from the second half of 2025. It will be equipped with self-driving technology developed by Nuro and will only be available on the Uber app. Below is the exterior of the robotaxi released in the release, with 'LUCID', 'nuro' and 'Uber' written on the body.

According to Uber, as of July 2025, only one prototype is driving autonomously at a test site in Las Vegas, but the company aims to introduce more than 20,000 vehicles by 2030. The announcement stated that 'Uber plans to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in both Nuro and Lucid as part of deepening our relationships with our partners,' and Uber spokesman Nick Twork revealed in a media interview that 'Uber has invested $300 million (about 44 billion yen) in Lucid' and that 'our investment in Nuro is much larger than that.'

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said of the partnership, 'Self-driving cars have huge potential to transform our cities for the better. We're thrilled to partner with Nuro and Lucid on this new robotaxi program built exclusively for the Uber platform, helping us safely bring the magic of self-driving to even more people around the world.'

Lucid CEO Mark Winterhoff also said, 'This investment from Uber is yet another testament to the fact that Lucid's architecture and platform are ideal for autonomous vehicles, and our industry-leading range and spacious interior are ideal for ride sharing. This is the first step in expanding our innovation and technology leadership into a multi-trillion dollar market. ' Nuro co-founder and CEO Jiajun Zhu said, 'Nuro has spent nearly a decade building a safe, scalable, vehicle-agnostic, AI-first autonomous driving system, and its effectiveness is demonstrated by five years of autonomous driving deployments. We are proud to combine Nuro's autonomous driving technology with Lucid's advanced vehicle architecture and Uber's global platform to create a robotaxi service that serves millions of people around the world. We believe this partnership will show what is possible when proven autonomous driving technology is combined with the real world. '