GoKawiilSelf-driving vehicles have become a common sight in the San Francisco Bay Area, and there are more companies looking to deploy their autonomous vehicles to public riders in the coming months.
Earlier this year, ride-hailing giant Uber, electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors and autonomous vehicle company Nuro unveiled the Lucid Gravity robotaxi, the result of a three-way partnership announced last year. I got an early look at what the companies have deemed the “industry’s most luxurious robotaxi” at CES in January, but the vehicle was parked inside a conference hall.
Last week, Nuro invited me to swing by its headquarters in Mountain View, California, to take a ride in one of its engineering prototype vehicles — with a safety driver onboard — as the companies aim for a public launch later this year.
Nuro is conducting tests on public roads with safety operators behind the wheel in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Houston. The company is also using closed-course testing and simulations to prepare its self-driving technology for a public rollout. Lucid is manufacturing the robotaxis at its factory in Arizona. Once the service becomes available, riders will be able to hail an autonomous ride in the Uber app.
“The beauty of this partnership is that it allows each company to do what it does best,” Nuro COO Andrew Chapin told me. “Uber brings the marketplace logistics, the demand and the overall in-app experience. We bring this safe AI driver, and Lucid brings a really awesome vehicle. “
The Lucid Gravity robotaxi will join the ranks of other AV companies, including Waymo and Zoox, which was just granted federal regulatory approval to begin charging for rides in its steering-wheel-less vehicles. One element that sets the Lucid Gravity AV apart is that it can fit up to six passengers, topping the four-passenger capacity of Waymo and Zoox’s offerings.
Here’s a look inside the roomy robotaxi prototype from Uber, Lucid and Nuro.
Abrar Al-Heeti/CNET
The sensor suite equipped with cameras, lidar and radar is pretty subtle on the Lucid Gravity robotaxi, at least compared with the more prominent sensor suite on Waymo’s Jaguar I-Pace vehicles.
Abrar Al-Heeti/CNET
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