Picture ordering an Uber from the airport, but your ride is a robotaxi. That's what you can expect a year from now with Uber's new program in partnership with electric vehicle manufacturer Lucid and tech company Nuro.Â
The partnership will combine Uber's ride-sharing platform with Lucid's new electric SUV, the Gravity, and Nuro's autonomous driving technology. It'll be launching first in an unnamed "major US city," but is expected to roll out globally to more than 20,000 Lucid vehicles over the next six years.Â
The Lucid-Nuro prototype robotaxis are already being tested on a closed circuit at Nuro's Las Vegas center, the companies said Thursday.
Nuro CEO and co-founder Jiajun Zhu says the company has been developing and testing an artificial intelligence-powered autonomous driving system for "nearly a decade."Â
Under the new deal, Uber said it will be making "multi-hundred-million-dollar investments" in both Lucid and Nuro.
Uber already has partnerships with 18 autonomous vehicle companies, including Waymo, Avride, Aurora and May Mobility.
"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."
Uber has also been working with Waymo to launch driverless robotaxis across the US, most recently in Atlanta last month after it began offering Waymo rides in Austin, Texas, in March, where it now has more than 100 vehicles operating there. Waymo operates fully autonomous taxi rides for the public in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix.
"Partnering with an established ride-hailing service like Uber is a great way to really scale a robotaxi service, and it helps to lower the barrier to entry, since so many people already have the Uber app on their phones," CNET Senior Writer Abrar Al-Heeti says of the partnership.
"Other self-driving companies like Waymo and May Mobility have teamed up with Uber to make their vehicles and technologies available to more people," Al-Heeti says, "and it'll be interesting to see how this collaboration shapes what's becoming an increasingly competitive space."
