Expected to launch later next year in a major US city, Uber is introducing a robotaxi service with Lucid Gravity.

Uber aims to deploy 20,000 or more Lucid vehicles over six years, taking a stake in Lucid for around $300m. The vehicles will be owned and operated by Uber or its third-party fleet partners and made available to ‘riders’ exclusively via the Uber platform and use technology from robotics company Nuro.

"Autonomous vehicles have enormous potential to transform our cities for the better," said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber. "We're thrilled to partner with Nuro and Lucid on this new robotaxi programme, purpose-built just for the Uber platform, to safely bring the magic of autonomous driving to more people across the world."

Uber already operates self-driving taxis in some US cities and is set to deploy robotaxis in Asia and the Middle East.

Ride-hailing robotaxis are a potentially huge market globally, and also potentially ‘green’ in that they are usually EVs, minimise traffic, car ownership and journey times. However Uber is far from the only company looking to have a stake in the game, with Tesla, Google and Amazon also seeking a cut.

Currently the Uk has no immediate plans to legalise robotaxis in the UK.

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