Uber is investing hundreds of millions of dollars into EV maker Lucid and autonomous vehicle technology startup Nuro in a bid to launch its own premium robotaxi service.
Under the deal announced Thursday, Uber will invest $300 million in Lucid and separately buy “at least” 20,000 of the EV maker’s new Gravity SUV over the next six years. Those EVs will be equipped with Nuro’s autonomous vehicle system, and the vehicles will be owned and operated by Uber or its third-party fleet partners. Uber plans to launch a robotaxi service in a major U.S. city next year.
Production of these modified Lucid Gravity vehicles is expected to begin in late 2026, according to a regulatory filing.
Uber is also investing an undisclosed “multi-hundred-million dollar” amount into Nuro. One source familiar with the agreement said the amount is more than Uber’s investment in Lucid.
The agreement between the three companies was a year in the making, Nuro co-founder and president Dave Ferguson told TechCrunch.
“I think that’s probably a reflection of how meaty it is,” he said, adding that Uber was looking to make a very large commitment to a robotaxi program, and spent time with almost every AV company to find the most suitable partner.
“We were thrilled that, at the end of all that, we were the partner that was chosen,” he said.
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Ferguson said engineers at Lucid and Nuro have already made progress on the project. The companies have been testing a prototype driverless vehicle on a closed track at Nuro’s proving grounds in Las Vegas.
Lucid’s Gravity SUVs are ideal because the vehicles are already equipped with the kind of hardware redundancies required for a Level 3 automated driving system, Ferguson said. (Level 3 is a designation by the Society of Automobile Engineers that allows the driver to take their eyes off the road and hands off the steering wheel in certain conditions.)
The Nuro-equipped Gravity vehicles will be Level 4, which means the vehicle can handle all aspects of driving in certain conditions without human intervention. Still, the added redundancies made it “almost …