Uber is investing lots of of tens of millions of {dollars} into EV maker Lucid and autonomous automobile know-how startup Nuro in a bid to launch its personal premium robotaxi service.
Beneath the deal introduced Thursday, Uber will make investments $300 million in Lucid and individually purchase “not less than” 20,000 of the EV maker’s new Gravity SUV over the following six years. These EVs will probably be outfitted with Nuro’s autonomous automobile system, and the automobiles will probably be owned and operated by Uber or its third-party fleet companions. Uber plans to launch a robotaxi service in a serious U.S. metropolis subsequent yr.
Manufacturing of those modified Lucid Gravity automobiles is anticipated to start in late 2026, based on a regulatory submitting.
Uber can be investing an undisclosed “multi-hundred-million greenback” quantity into Nuro. One supply acquainted with the settlement stated the quantity is greater than Uber’s funding in Lucid.
The settlement between the three firms was a yr within the making, Nuro co-founder and president Dave Ferguson advised TechCrunch.
“I believe that’s in all probability a mirrored image of how meaty it’s,” he stated, including that Uber was trying to make a really giant dedication to a robotaxi program, and frolicked with virtually each AV firm to seek out essentially the most appropriate companion.
“We have been thrilled that, on the finish of all that, we have been the companion that was chosen,” he stated.
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Ferguson stated engineers at Lucid and Nuro have already made progress on the challenge. The businesses have been testing a prototype driverless automobile on a closed monitor at Nuro’s proving grounds in Las Vegas.
Lucid’s Gravity SUVs are supreme as a result of the automobiles are already outfitted with the form of {hardware} redundancies required for a Stage 3 automated driving system, Ferguson stated. (Stage 3 is a designation by the Society of Car Engineers that permits the driving force to take their eyes off the street and palms off the steering wheel in sure situations.)
The Nuro-equipped Gravity automobiles will probably be Stage 4, which implies the automobile can deal with all features of driving in sure situations with out human intervention. Nonetheless, the added redundancies made it “virtually a delight” as Nuro built-in its self-driving system into the automobiles, Ferguson stated.
Uber has spent the previous two years locking in partnerships with autonomous automobile know-how firms, protecting the spectrum of how self-driving programs might be utilized to the bodily world. The ride-hailing big has partnered with greater than 18 firms globally, throughout ride-hailing, supply, and trucking. On this yr alone, it has introduced offers with Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Might Mobility Volkswagen, in addition to Chinese language self-driving corporations Momenta, WeRide, and Baidu.
Uber’s most high-profile partnership within the U.S. — and one that’s commercially working at the moment — is with Waymo. The businesses supply a “Waymo on Uber” service in Austin and Atlanta.
This deal illustrates simply how a lot cash Uber is keen to spend money on hopes of tapping into, and even dominating, the burgeoning autonomous automobile market.
The settlement can be validation for Nuro, which has raised greater than $2 billion from high-profile traders because it was based in 2016. The startup initially centered on making use of its AV tech to a fleet of low-speed, on-road supply bots, which it had developed. However the firm burned by way of its money reserves, and after dealing with tough capital markets, carried out a number of rounds of layoffs in 2022 and 2023.
Final yr, Nuro pivoted its enterprise technique to focus extra on the startup’s core autonomous driving know-how. It ditched the low-speed supply mannequin and got down to license its autonomous automobile know-how to automakers and mobility suppliers, like ride-hail and supply firms. The choice to solely give attention to creating and licensing the AV system allowed Nuro to increase its runway from 1.5 years to three.5 years, the corporate stated on the time.
However the firm nonetheless wanted a licensing deal to show its shift. The Uber settlement, together with a number of others within the works, based on Ferguson, suggests the pivot is paying off.
