The multi-billion dollar deal with Lucid and Nuro could be Uber’s answer to Tesla and Waymo, but not everyone’s convinced
Rodrigo Varela/Getty Images for The Four Seasons Miam
Uber $UBER is making a bold move into the driverless future — with help from electric vehicle maker Lucid $LCID Motors and autonomous driving startup Nuro. The ride-hailing giant announced Thursday that it plans to deploy more than 20,000 robotaxis over the next six years, powered by Lucid’s EVs and Nuro’s software.
The self-driving fleet, expected to debut in a major U.S. city next year, will operate exclusively on Uber’s platform. It’s a fresh attempt by Uber to gain a foothold in the autonomous vehicle (AV) space after selling off its own self-driving unit in 2020 and instead forging partnerships with outside players including Waymo and May Mobility.
Lucid’s stock price soared more than 39% on the news, and Uber shares were up slightly midday Thursday.
Uber said it's also investing $300 million in Lucid and a “multi-hundred-million dollar” sum in Nuro. But some analysts aren’t convinced this is a win.
“This deal highlights several issues Uber faces,” Wedbush analyst Scott Devitt wrote in a note to investors Thursday. “It puts the Waymo relationship at risk, impairs the capital efficiency story, and comes with major execution risk given Lucid and Nuro as partners.” He likened the move to “doing a deal with AskJeeves, Overture, or Infoseek back in the day to protect against Google $GOOGL on the horizon.”
Wedbush estimates the investment could total at least $2.3 billion before even accounting for Nuro — and questions whether Lucid, which delivered just 10,000 vehicles in 2024 and has faced production struggles, can scale quickly enough to meet Uber’s goals. “Lucid would need even more capital to deliver on Uber’s production requests,” Devitt noted.
Still, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi struck a bullish tone, calling the program “purpose-built just for the Uber platform” and a key step in bringing the “magic of autonomous driving” to more riders.
For Lucid, the deal is a big opportunity to break into commercial fleet sales and prove its EV tech can power not just luxury cars, but robotaxis. Interim CEO Marc Winterhoff said the partnership validates Lucid’s “innovation and technology leadership” and could eventually expand to other models currently in development.
Nuro, meanwhile, gains its first large-scale human passenger deployment after years focused on autonomous deliveries. The startup, backed by Google’s parent company Alphabet and SoftBank, will provide the AI software that drives the Lucid vehicles.
But despite all the enthusiasm, analysts warn the road ahead is bumpy. “The AV market is still fragmented, but it’s likely to consolidate among a few top players,” Devitt wrote. And for now, “Waymo and Tesla $TSLA still have a massive scale and technology advantage.”
Uber is betting that teaming up with Lucid and Nuro will help it stay relevant in a world of driverless cars. But if this partnership stumbles — or if rivals pull further ahead—the company could find itself watching the autonomous revolution from the passenger seat.
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