Uber Accelerates Into Autonomous Future With $300M Partnership With Lucid and Nuro

The robotaxi boom just got a major power-up. UberUBER

announced a $300M partnership with electric vehicle maker LucidLCID

and self-driving startup Nuro to deploy over 20K robotaxis across dozens of global markets over the next six years. The news of this ambitious venture sent Lucid’s shares up 30% yesterday while Uber’s stock climbed modestly higher.

• This deal utilizes Nuro’s Level 4 self-driving technology, enabling fully autonomous operation under traffic and weather conditions without requiring human intervention behind the wheel.
• Additionally, this also leverages Lucid Gravity’s 450-mile range to minimize charging downtime and maximize fleet availability compared to competitors with shorter ranges.

Race heats up: This partnership puts Uber in direct competition with its existing Waymo alliance, as the ride-hailing giant hedges its bets across multiple autonomous vehicle providers. Lucid’s interim CEO, Marc Winterhoff, described it as a chance to tap into a “completely new” addressable market, while Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said their aim is to “safely bring the magic of autonomous driving to more people across the world.” With the first launch planned for a major US city next year and Tesla’sTSLA

robotaxi pilot already testing in Austin, Uber’s bet signals the company expects driverless cars to become mainstream sooner rather than later.