Uber Invests $10B in Robotaxis While Criticizing Waymo
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- Uber is committing more than $10 billion to build its own robotaxi fleet, including $2.5 billion in equity investments and $7.5 billion in vehicle purchase agreements with Rivian, Lucid, and Nuro.
- Uber owns 11.5% of Lucid after a $500 million investment and plans to deploy at least 35,000 Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with Nuro’s Level 4 autonomous system.
- Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli shared a video on X criticizing a Waymo vehicle’s driving behavior in San Francisco, calling the encounter 'scary' and highlighting concerns about edge-case judgment in AVs.
- CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has publicly questioned the reliability of autonomous vehicles, stating they are 'far from capable' of meeting customer expectations despite acknowledging their 'enormous potential'.
- Nuro secured a California driverless permit to test Lucid Gravity SUVs without safety drivers, a key step toward Uber’s planned commercial robotaxi launch in San Francisco later this year.
- Waymo operates robotaxis on Uber’s platform in Austin and Atlanta and delivers around 400,000 paid rides weekly across 10 U.S. cities, aiming for 1 million by end of 2026.
Why it matters: Uber’s $10 billion pivot to owning its robotaxi fleet undermines its partnership with Waymo, which already runs 400,000 weekly paid rides independently. This shift reveals Uber’s fear of being cut out of the AV value chain despite relying on Waymo’s tech in some markets — a contradiction that risks fracturing key alliances while increasing capital exposure.
