Uber deepens robotaxi push with US$500m Nuro commitment

Uber has committed close to US$500m to autonomous vehicle startup Nuro through a combination of direct investment and milestone-linked funding, according to a Reuters report citing two sources familiar with the matter. The figure includes Uber’s participation in a US$203m Series E round that valued Nuro at US$6bn, a subsequent follow-on investment larger than the first, and further tranches contingent on Nuro hitting defined development and commercial targets.

The first milestones have reportedly been met on schedule, triggering an initial release of performance-linked capital—a detail that may matter more than the headline figure. Remaining payments are tied to driverless testing scheduled to begin later in 2026, fully autonomous passenger operations before year-end, and broader service expansion through 2027. Nuro is currently running supervised testing with safety drivers in preparation for a commercial launch in the San Francisco Bay Area; in April it received a California permit to test Lucid Gravity vehicles without a safety driver in selected counties, and in May was cleared to carry passengers in supervised testing.

The Nuro investment sits within a three-way arrangement that, of course, also involves Lucid. Under which the partners are working toward a fleet of 35,000 robotaxis using Lucid Gravity SUVs and future midsize models, Nuro’s autonomous software stack and Uber’s ride-hailing platform. Uber has separately committed US$500m to Lucid; Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has also contributed a further US$550m in convertible preferred stock. 

The financial architecture around Uber’s autonomy strategy is becoming increasingly complex: alongside its Nuro and Lucid commitments, the company has deployed capital across Wayve, Rivian, Baidu, Waabi the Nvidia-Autobrains Munich programme, and more, simultaneously. At a certain scale, platform agnosticism starts to resemble a portfolio of large bets rather than a coherent strategy—and Uber has not yet had to answer publicly what the returns look like if only some of its numerous partnerships reach commercial scale.

Nuro’s own trajectory is noteworthy; indeed, the company does not share the straightforward robotaxi origins as most other autonomy players. The company originally built small autonomous delivery robots before restructuring entirely in 2024 around licensing its self-driving software to vehicle manufacturers and mobility operators. This pivot left it without a hardware product, but a technology stack that Uber is now underwriting to the tune of half a billion dollars. If the Bay Area launch delivers, the post-pivot model becomes a credible template for how AV software developers survive without owning the fleet.

Uber’s broader robotaxi positioning is increasingly consequential. The company plans to facilitate robotaxi trips in up to 15 cities globally by end of 2026 — including London, Madrid, Hong Kong, Houston and Zurich — and Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi has argued that autonomous vehicles operating through Uber’s existing platform achieve higher utilisation and shorter pickup times than standalone robotaxi services, giving Uber a structural advantage as deployments scale. 

The Nuro-Lucid programme appears to be the most capital-intensive of its robotaxi commitments, and the fact that its early milestones are tracking to plan gives Uber a rare piece of good news in a space where slippage has been the norm. Still, the industry backdrop against which Uber is deploying this capital has shifted markedly. Waymo is operating commercially in multiple US cities and expanding; Tesla’s Cybercab has entered production, albeit without the regulatory approvals needed for most markets; Amazon’s Zoox is advancing its purpose-built robotaxi programme.