Uber has signed a new six-year agreement to deploy more than 20,000 autonomous taxis. Its partners in this project are electric vehicle manufacturer Lucid and autonomous technology startup Nuro. This was reported by the company’s press service.
As part of the agreement, Uber will invest $300 million in Lucid. Nuro, in turn, will provide Level 4 autonomous driving software, which will be integrated into Lucid electric vehicles used for Uber’s service. Against the backdrop of this news, Lucid’s shares rose 36%.
The first robotaxis are expected to hit the roads of one of the US megacities as early as next year. For Lucid, this deal is a significant step, opening up access to the autonomous transportation market, where the company was previously unrepresented.
Nuro, which has the support of giants such as Google and SoftBank, is developing technologies capable of driving a car autonomously under usual driving conditions. The first tests of the joint project are already underway at the startup’s test site in Las Vegas.
The new service will be based on Lucid Gravity electric vehicles with a range of up to 725 km, which should help reduce operating costs and charging time. Lucid also does not rule out the possibility that other models may be added to the program in the future. This project is an extension of Uber’s robotaxi strategy, which already has a partnership with Waymo (a division of Alphabet).