The U.S. robotaxi industry is entering a critical new phase as competition intensifies among companies racing to commercialize autonomous ride-hailing.
The latest move comes from Lucid, Uber, and Nuro, who are partnering on what they describe as one of the largest robotaxi deployment programs to date.
This week, Lucid delivered the first Gravity SUV for retrofitting to Nuro, marking the opening step in a deal announced in July that envisions at least 20,000 autonomous vehicles hitting American roads over the next six years.
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The SUV was built at Lucid’s plant in Casa Grande, Arizona, and then transported to its headquarters in Newark, California. At Newark, Nuro’s engineers installed an array of sensors and other hardware essential for autonomous driving. While this process was tailored for the engineering prototype, future retrofits will be conducted directly on Lucid’s assembly line, streamlining production for large-scale deployment.
The prototype is now housed at Nuro’s Santa Clara facility, where it is being integrated with the company’s Nuro Driver software. Engineers have begun the crucial testing and validation process, with the first commercial-ready robotaxis expected to appear on Uber’s ride-hailing network in 2026.
“This is a milestone, but the journey is just beginning,” executives from the three firms said, stressing that while the program starts with 20,000 vehicles, the eventual scope could be “much, much more.”
Competition intensifies in the robotaxi market
The Lucid-Uber-Nuro partnership comes at a time when the U.S. robotaxi market is heating up, with several rivals already putting vehicles on the road in limited services.
- Waymo, owned by Alphabet, is operating just under 2,000 robotaxis in select markets, including Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Its ride-hailing service, Waymo One, has recently expanded to serve paying customers in parts of Southern California, marking one of the most advanced commercial rollouts in the industry.
- Cruise, majority-owned by General Motors, had been running driverless taxis in San Francisco until a high-profile accident led regulators to suspend operations in late 2023. The company is now relaunching cautiously, beginning with supervised testing and plans to return to full commercial service in select U.S. cities next year.
- Tesla continues to promote its vision of a global robotaxi fleet powered by its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software. At present, Tesla has only a few dozen experimental vehicles on the streets of Austin, Texas. These still require safety monitors, and the system remains in beta, but CEO Elon Musk has reiterated that Tesla plans to unveil a dedicated robotaxi vehicle in 2026.
- Smaller players such as Zoox (owned by Amazon) and Motional (a Hyundai-Aptiv joint venture) are also advancing. Zoox has begun piloting its custom-built autonomous shuttle in Nevada, while Motional operates autonomous rides in Las Vegas through a partnership with Lyft, albeit still with safety drivers onboard.
Industry challenges and the long road ahead
The scale of the Lucid-Uber-Nuro deal recalls some of the bold early predictions made nearly a decade ago, when developers promised tens of thousands of robotaxis would be operational within a few years. Reality has proven more complex. Safety validation, regulatory approvals, and consumer trust remain significant hurdles, delaying mass adoption.
Lucid’s delivery of the first Gravity SUV is an important marker, but the path to large-scale deployment will be gradual. Each vehicle must undergo extensive testing, software refinement, and regulatory vetting before it can safely carry passengers without human intervention.
Still, the combined strengths of Lucid’s electric vehicle engineering, Nuro’s autonomous technology, and Uber’s ride-hailing platform offer a powerful foundation. If successful, the partnership could carve out a significant share of a market that analysts predict could be worth hundreds of billions of dollars globally within the next decade.
However, as competition accelerates across the U.S., every small milestone will matter in deciding which players ultimately dominate the future of driverless mobility.