Uber is investing tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} into EV maker Lucid and autonomous automobile expertise startup Nuro in a bid to launch its personal premium robotaxi service.
Below the deal introduced Thursday, Uber will make investments $300 million in Lucid and individually purchase “no less than” 20,000 of the EV maker’s new Gravity SUV over the following six years. These EVs might be outfitted with Nuro’s autonomous automobile system, and the autos might 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 12 months.
Manufacturing of those modified Lucid Gravity autos is predicted to start in late 2026, according to a regulatory filing.
Uber can be investing an undisclosed “multi-hundred-million greenback” quantity into Nuro. One supply aware of the settlement stated the quantity is greater than Uber’s funding in Lucid.
The settlement between the three firms was a 12 months within the making, Nuro co-founder and president Dave Ferguson informed TechCrunch.
“I feel that’s most likely a mirrored image of how meaty it’s,” he stated, including that Uber was trying to make a really massive dedication to a robotaxi program, and hung out with nearly each AV firm to search out probably the most appropriate accomplice.
“We had been thrilled that, on the finish of all that, we had been the accomplice that was chosen,” he stated.
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Ferguson stated engineers at Lucid and Nuro have already made progress on the venture. The businesses have been testing a prototype driverless automobile on a closed observe at Nuro’s proving grounds in Las Vegas.
Lucid’s Gravity SUVs are supreme as a result of the autos are already outfitted with the sort of {hardware} redundancies required for a Stage 3 automated driving system, Ferguson stated. (Stage 3 is a designation by the Society of Automobile Engineers that enables the driving force to take their eyes off the street and fingers off the steering wheel in sure situations.)
The Nuro-equipped Gravity autos might be Stage 4, which suggests the automobile can deal with all facets of driving in sure situations with out human intervention. Nonetheless, the added redundancies made it “nearly a delight” as Nuro built-in its self-driving system into the autos, Ferguson stated.
Uber has spent the previous two years locking in partnerships with autonomous automobile expertise firms, masking the spectrum of how self-driving programs may 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 12 months alone, it has introduced offers with Ann Arbor, Michigan-based May Mobility and 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 present — is with Waymo. The businesses provide a “Waymo on Uber” service in Austin and Atlanta.
This deal illustrates simply how a lot cash Uber is prepared to put money into 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 buyers 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 delivery 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 12 months, Nuro pivoted its business strategy to focus extra on the startup’s core autonomous driving expertise. It ditched the low-speed supply mannequin and got down to license its autonomous automobile expertise to automakers and mobility suppliers, like ride-hail and supply firms. The choice to solely concentrate on growing 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, in accordance with Ferguson, suggests the pivot is paying off.