By the end of this decade, your next Uber ride may not have a driver at all. At least, that’s what Uber wants you (and its investors on Wall Street, trust you.)
Uber today announced a new partnership with luxury electric car maker Lucid and robotics company Nuro. Under the agreement, Uber plans to deploy at least 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs with Nuro autonomous driving technology over the next six years. Robot services are expected to be launched in major U.S. cities next year, with plans to expand to dozens of markets around the world.
As part of the deal, Uber will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Lucid and Nuro.
“Automotive cars have a lot of potential to change our cities,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Press release. “We are excited to partner with Nuro and Lucid to participate in this new Robotaxi program, designed for the Uber platform to safely bring the magic of autonomous driving to more people in the world.”
This is not the first time Uber has entered the Robotaxi business. In September, it announced a partnership with Alphabet’s Waymo, now operating in Waymo’s self-driving cars Austin and Atlanta. Waymo also offers rides through its own apps in Phoenix, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Uber is not alone in promising to bring the sci-fi dreams of cities filled with driverless taxis to life.
Amazon-owned Zoox is testing its presence in Seattle, Austin, Miami, Los Angeles and Atlanta. The company plans to start offering public rides in San Francisco and Las Vegas by the end of this year.
Even Tesla operates its own Robotaxi service in parts of Austin.
Nevertheless, despite Silicon Valley’s obsession with driverless cars, it remains to be seen whether they can truly reshape urban transport at least any time soon.
Even though Uber does deploy 20,000 robots, it still less than 1% of the workforce of 7 million drivers worldwide.
The road to driverless cars is not without bumps.
Earlier this year ZOOX recalls 270 cars Have a specific version of the company’s self-driving software. The recall was the result of a car accident involving a Zoox car in Las Vegas. This is the company’s second recall this year.
Meanwhile, GM announced late last year that it is unplugging its Robotaxi business ambitions. The automaker, based on cruise automation in 2016, hopes to launch a fleet of driverless cars and invest billions of dollars in the effort. But in December, GM said it would stop Provide funds for unitsAnd cite “the vast amount of time and resources needed to expand your business and the highly competitive robotics market.”
Instead, GM is now using the company’s technology to advance its drivers-assisted software.
The decision happened after a serious incident involving cruise tools. In October 2023, one of the cars attacked a pedestrian in San Francisco after the man had been hit by another vehicle – and dragged her nearly 20 feet. Paid later $1.5 million Due to failure to fully disclose the details of the collapse to regulators.
