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Your Next Robotaxi Ride Could Be Fast And Luxurious
Lucid, Uber, and Nuro are building the biggest and comfiest robotaxi yet.
If you thought a robotaxi ride in a Jaguar I-Pace was nice, you could be in for an even bigger surprise sooner rather than later. Lucid, in partnership with Uber, is planning a ride hail robotaxi service of their own. This one will be using the gigantic and luxurious Lucid Gravity instead of a comparatively cramped Tesla, Jag, or Chevrolet Bolt EV.
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Lucid's self-driving tech comes from a startup called Nuro. The company describes its Nuro Driver AI-powered system as being able to deliver Level 4 self-driving. That's the ability to go without a safety driver and to handle nearly every driving condition, for those who may not know the distinction between the levels.
New Robotaxi Service To Start In 2026
Uber plans to deploy 20,000 Lucid vehicles with the Nuro Driver automated driving system over six years. That rollout will start with a launch next year. As far as where, Uber and Lucid said only that it would launch "in a major US city." Other robotaxi services are available in cities like San Francisco, Austin, and Phoenix, making one of those cities the most likely place to start. Lucid's factory is located just south of Phoenix, which would make that city a convenient one to begin operations.
Starting next month, Lucid owners will get an even more relaxed highway experience.
The first Lucid-Nuro robotaxi is already operating. Though it's on a closed circuit at Nuro's proving ground in Las Vegas, not out on public streets. With Nuro already testing in that city, Las Vegas is another possible starting point.
"Nuro has spent nearly a decade building an AI-first autonomy system that's safe, scalable, and vehicle-agnostic, proven through five years of driverless deployments across multiple U.S. cities and states. By combining our self-driving technology with Lucid's advanced vehicle architecture and Uber's global platform, we're proud to enable a robotaxi service designed to reach millions of people around the world."
- Jiajun Zhu, Co-Founder and CEO, Nuro.
Uber Will Spend Big Bucks On Its Robotaxi Partners
As part of the agreement, Uber will be investing heavily in both Lucid and Nuro. The announcement said the ride-hailing company plans to make "multi-hundred-million dollar investments in both."
Autonomous vehicles have enormous potential to transform our cities for the better," said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber. "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." Robotaxis have long been seen as the end game for Uber. Replacing its large number of drivers with self-driving vehicles to reduce labor costs and increase the availability of rides.
"This investment from Uber further validates Lucid's fully redundant zonal architecture and highly capable platform as ideal for autonomous vehicles, and our industry-leading range and spacious well-appointed interiors, as ideal for ridesharing. This is the start of our path to extend our innovation and technology leadership into this multi-trillion-dollar market."
- Marc Winterhoff, Interim CEO, Lucid
Volkswagen has taken the wraps off its production-ready robotaxi based on the ID. Buzz electric minivan.
Lucid said that it would be able to add the necessary hardware to the Gravity SUV "seamlessly" on its assembly line. The software will be added later when the vehicle is commissioned by Uber. Lucid did not mention any potential application of the software and hardware for customer-owned and operated vehicles.