As robotaxis start hitting city streets around the world, Uber is making moves to ensure it doesn’t get left behind.
Uber announced Thursday that it is partnering with EV maker Rivian to roll out up to 50,000 unsupervised robotaxis by 2031.
As part of the deal, Uber has agreed to invest $1.25 billion in Rivian through 2031. An initial $300 million has been committed following the signing of the deal and regulatory approval. The remaining investment will depend on whether Rivian reaches certain autonomous milestones.
Additionally, Uber or its fleet partners will purchase 10,000 R2 SUVs, with the option to buy an additional 40,000 vehicles in 2030.
Uber’s Rivian R2 fleet will initially be deployed in San Francisco and Miami in 2028, with plans to expand to up to 25 cities across the U.S., Canada, and Europe by 2031.
“We’re big believers in Rivian’s approach—designing the vehicle, compute platform, and software stack together, while maintaining end-to-end control of scaled manufacturing and supply in the U.S,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a press release. “That vertical integration, combined with data from their growing consumer vehicle base and experience managing the complexities of commercial fleets, gives us conviction to set these ambitious but achievable targets.”
The news comes as other robotaxi services like Alphabet’s Waymo and Amazon’s Zoox have already hit the road. Waymo is currently the industry leader, with a fleet of about 3,000 vehicles serving rides in 10 metro areas, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, and Houston. Uber already manages Waymo’s fleets in Austin and Atlanta.
Waymo recently announced its next-gen robotaxis and plans to scale production at its Phoenix factory with this latest driving system to tens of thousands of vehicles per year.
This is not Uber’s first deal aimed at breaking into the robotaxi market. Last July, the company announced a partnership with luxury EV maker Lucid and robotics firm Nuro. Under that agreement, Uber plans to deploy at least 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with Nuro’s self-driving technology over the next five years.
More recently, Uber said it is investing more than $100 million to build autonomous vehicle–dedicated charging hubs. The hubs will include fast-charging stations at what the company calls autonomous depots, where Uber will handle day-to-day fleet operations like cleaning, maintenance, and inspections. The company also plans to build additional fast-charging pit-stop stations in convenient locations across priority cities, allowing self-driving vehicles to stay on the road longer.
While it’s starting to seem like robotaxis are the future, the present is far from perfect. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently opened a probe into a January incident in which a Waymo robotaxi struck a child near a Santa Monica elementary school during drop-off hours, just one of many incidents that have muddied the waters on the viability of current robotaxi systems.
Source: Gizmodo