Uber to invest in $300m in EV maker Lucid amid robotaxi deal

The thrust sharing institution volition usage 20,000 SUVs starting with a US metropolis successful 2026.

Uber volition put $300m successful electrical conveyance shaper Lucid successful a robotaxi woody that aims to commencement with 1 large US metropolis precocious adjacent year.

The 2 companies announced the caller concern connected Thursday.

Over six years starting successful 2026, Uber volition get and deploy implicit 20,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs that volition beryllium equipped with autonomous conveyance (AV) exertion from startup Nuro, the 3 companies said successful a statement.

The statement illustrates the renewed plans and propulsion for financing for self-driving cabs, years aft a archetypal question of autonomous driving concern produced lone a constricted fig of vehicles. Tesla has precocious launched a robotaxi proceedings successful Austin, and Alphabet’s driverless taxi unit, Waymo, is speeding up its expansion.

As portion of their announced deal, Uber volition put hundreds of millions of dollars successful Lucid and Nuro, which proviso self-driving exertion to carmakers, the associated connection said. Of that, $300m volition spell to Lucid, the EV shaper said successful a abstracted filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission connected Thursday.

Lucid shares surged astir 39 percent arsenic of 11:15am successful New York (15:15 GMT). They had fallen astir 24 percent this year.

Uber’s latest determination underscores its renewed propulsion into the robotaxi abstraction aft exiting successful 2020. Since then, Uber has pivoted to partnerships with respective exertion developers, including Waymo and Aurora.

The woody with Lucid follows Uber’s robotaxi statement successful April with Volkswagen, which volition proviso its ID.Buzz vans for commercialized service, planned for Los Angeles adjacent year.

But commercialising AV tech has been overmuch harder than anticipated, with precocious costs, choky regulations and national investigations forcing many, including General Motors’ Cruise, to unopen down.

Some inactive successful the contention see Amazon.com’s Zoox, which is investigating a robotaxi without manual controls and plans to motorboat commercialized services successful Las Vegas this year.

After years of missed deadlines and unmet promises, Tesla started a restricted proceedings with astir a twelve of its Model Y SUVs successful Austin, Texas, past month. CEO Elon Musk has said it volition grow the work rapidly to different US cities this year.

Waymo has been growing cautiously for years and operates successful respective US cities with astir 1,500 vehicles. It crossed 100 cardinal miles of autonomous driving this month.

A prototype of the Lucid-Nuro robotaxi is already operating autonomously connected a closed circuit astatine Nuro’s investigating installation successful Las Vegas, the companies said.

“We are expanding beyond our accepted EV exertion enactment and moving connected partnerships and going present into areas that successful the past we person not truly focused on,” Lucid’s interim CEO Marc Winterhoff told the Reuters quality agency.

Nuro, cofounded and led by erstwhile Waymo engineers, has expanded from making last-mile transportation vehicles to providing its self-driving exertion for commercialized and rider vehicles.

“We person different precise progressive conversations going connected the idiosyncratic conveyance broadside … wherever we would integrate Nuro operator into vehicles that volition get sold to extremity consumers,” Dave Ferguson, Nuro’s cofounder and president, said.

Nuro volition inactive request to use for state-level operating licences, though it holds immoderate licences from its erstwhile transportation operations, helium said.

Separately, Lucid said it had projected a one-for-10 reverse banal divided of its people A communal stock.

While Lucid banal was up 39 percent, Uber’s stock, connected the different hand, was trending downward astatine 0.1 percent from the marketplace open.