By the end of this decade, your next Uber ride might not have a driver at all. At least, that’s what Uber wants you (and its investors on Wall Street to believe.)
Uber announced a new partnership today with luxury electric vehicle maker Lucid and the robotics company Nuro. Under the agreement, Uber plans to deploy a fleet of at least 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with Nuro’s self-driving technology over the next six years. The robotaxi service is expected to launch in a yet unnamed major U.S. city next year, with plans to expand to dozens of markets around the world.
As part of the deal, Uber will invest hundreds of millions of dollars into both Lucid and Nuro.
“Autonomous vehicles have enormous potential to transform our cities for the better,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a press release. “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.”
This is not Uber’s first foray into the robotaxi business. In September, it announced a partnership with Alphabet’s Waymo and now operates Waymo’s autonomous vehicles in Austin and Atlanta. Waymo also offers rides through its own app in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Uber is also not alone in promising to bring the sci-fi dream of cities filled with driverless taxis to life.
Amazon-owned Zoox is testing its autonomous taxis in several cities, including Seattle, Austin, Miami, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. The company plans to begin offering public rides in San Francisco and Las Vegas by the end of this year.
And even Tesla is operating its own robotaxi service in parts of Austin.
Still, despite Silicon Valley’s obsession with driverless cars, it remains to be seen whether they can truly reshape urban transportation, at least anytime soon.
Even if Uber does deploy 20,000 robotaxis, that’s still less than 1% of its current workforce of over 7 million drivers worldwide.
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