Uber said Wednesday that the San Francisco Bay Area will be the first market for its specially built autonomous taxi, which is expected to launch in late 2026.<\/p>\n
The San Francisco-based ride-hailing company said in July it was developing a robotaxi with the electric car company Lucid and the self-driving technology company Nuro Inc. The vehicle is exclusive to Uber but is based on the Lucid Gravity SUV.<\/p>\n
Uber said Lucid recently delivered test vehicles to Nuro. Uber said it plans to have 100 test vehicles on the road in the coming months.<\/p>\n
Within six years, Uber said it plans to deploy 20,000 or more Lucid-based autonomous taxis in multiple locations. The vehicles will be available to riders through the Uber app.<\/p>\n
Uber is working with multiple companies to speed the deployment of autonomous taxis.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Uber said it\u2019s also developing robotaxis with the tech company Nvidia and the automaker Stellantis<\/a>. Uber said Tuesday that in 2028, Stellantis expects to start production of at least 5,000 vehicles powered by Nvidia software for autonomous taxi operations in the U.S.<\/p>\n And last week, Uber said it has begun offering autonomous taxi rides in Saudi Arabia as part of a partnership with WeRide, a Chinese autonomous tech company.<\/p>\n Autonomous taxis aren\u2019t new, but as the world\u2019s largest ride-hailing service, Uber\u2019s adoption of them is significant. Uber operates in 15,000 cities in more than 70 countries.<\/p>\n Waymo, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet, has been testing autonomous taxis for years. Those taxis are currently available in Phoenix<\/a>, San Francisco<\/a>, Los Angeles<\/a>, Atlanta<\/a> and Austin<\/a>. Waymo said earlier this month it plans to expand to London<\/a> next year.<\/p>\n