Uber partners with Lucid, Nuro for ambitious robotaxi program
Story Highlights
- Uber partners with Lucid and Nuro for robotaxi program
- 20,000 autonomous vehicles planned for global deployment over six years
- Uber to invest millions in Lucid and Nuro companies
Uber Technologies Inc. on Thursday unveiled a three-way partnership with an Arizona component to develop a “next generation” robotaxi program exclusive to the Uber platform.
The ride-hailing partnership is a joint effort alongside California electric vehicle producer Lucid Group Inc. – which produces its EVs in Arizona – and autonomous vehicle start-up Nuro Inc. Uber plans to deploy at least 20,000 vehicles in “dozens of markets around the world” over a six-year window.
Eyeing a first launch later next year in an unspecified major United States city, a prototype is being tested at Nuro’s Las Vegas proving grounds, according to the announcement.
“Autonomous vehicles have enormous potential to transform our cities for the better,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. “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.”
The Saudi-backed, Silicon Valley-based Lucid, which has a pair of vehicle assembly plants in the Phoenix region, will play a key role in developing the vehicles for the initiative. Nuro, partly backed by Google Cloud and the SoftBank Vision Fund, will add its “level 4 self-driving system” to the Lucid Gravity SUV.
Lucid will install Nuro’s hardware at its Casa Grande assembly plant in Pinal County, the company confirmed to the Business Journal
“We believe this partnership will demonstrate what’s possible when proven AV technology meets real-world scale,” said Jiajun Zhu, Nuro co-founder and CEO in a statement. “Nuro has spent nearly a decade building an AI-first autonomy system that’s safe, scalable, and vehicle-agnostic, proven through five years of driverless deployments across multiple U.S. cities and states.”
Lucid shares soar on Uber deal
Highlighting its relationship-building efforts with each partner, Uber said it plans to make multimillion-dollar investments in both Nuro and Lucid. The investment in Lucid, which saw its stock soar after the announcement, is reportedly $300 million.
On Thursday, Lucid’s stock price spiked when the announcement was made and reached $3.37, before slipping back to close at $3.12, up more than 36% in heavy trading volume.
“This investment from Uber further validates Lucid’s fully redundant zonal architecture and highly capable platform as ideal for autonomous vehicles, and our industry-leading range and spacious well-appointed interiors, as ideal for ridesharing,” said Marc Winterhoff, Lucid’s interim CEO, in a statement. “This is the start of our path to extend our innovation and technology leadership into this multi-trillion-dollar market.”
The robotaxi initiative and corresponding Uber investment will not change Lucid’s current plans to “continue to ramp production and expand headcount,” the company said. In previous months, Lucid capitalized on Nikola Corp.’s bankruptcy auction, from which they acquired two sites from the electric truck maker for its Phoenix hub facility and Coolidge manufacturing plant.
In January, the company agreed to pay over a quarter-million dollars in a settlement with terminated workers who attempted to unionize at the Casa Grande plant, the Business Journal previously reported. The following month, former CEO Peter Rawlinson stepped down from his role despite Lucid’s strong financial showing.
Uber’s attempt to break into the autonomous taxis market comes amid a push from tech competitor Tesla Inc. to do the same. Last month, Tesla initiated the process to bring its robotaxis to Arizona, in addition to its rollout in Texas and plans for California.
In cities like Phoenix, the self-driving ride-hailing space is dominated by Waymo, the autonomous electric Jaguars owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. Uber and Tesla’s efforts to get off the ground are contributing to the fast-growing autonomous vehicle market.
“By combining our self-driving technology with Lucid’s advanced vehicle architecture and Uber’s global platform, we’re proud to enable a robotaxi service designed to reach millions of people around the world,” Zhu said.