Uber will bring premium robotaxi service to Houston in 2027

Uber plans to launch a premium robotaxi service in Houston by mid-2027, making it the second U.S. market under its partnership with electric car maker Lucid and self-driving vehicle startup Nuro.

The announcement comes after a flurry of activity in the San Francisco Bay Area, as the three companies prepare to introduce robotaxi service there later this year. Uber says it will bring its robotaxi program to “dozens of cities” in the coming years.

For now, the focus is on San Francisco and then Houston — both markets where Uber will go head-to-head with rival Waymo, the self-driving vehicle company owned by Alphabet that currently operates commercial taxi services in both cities.

Nuro has spent months testing self-driving-equipped Lucid Gravity SUVs in San Francisco, and has made progress on that front, including bidding. Uber employees The ability to welcome a Lucid robotaxis. But these vehicles still aren’t self-driving, even though Nuro received a permit last month from the California Department of Motor Vehicles that allows it to remove the safety driver from the car.

Uber and Nuru’s combined engineering fleet of 100 self-driving vehicles is being tested on public roads with safety operators behind the wheel as well in Houston. Nuru also uses closed training sessions and simulations to validate the self-driving system before opening the robotaxi to the public. The pilot fleet is expected to expand in the coming weeks as Lucid begins manufacturing the first production versions of the robotaxi at its factory in Arizona.

apparent gravity robotaxi, It was revealed in Januarywhich is equipped with high-resolution cameras, solid-state lidar sensors and radars that help the autonomous driving system perceive and operate in the real-world environment. Uber, which will own and operate the fleet, has focused its efforts on the in-cabin experience, including how passengers interact with the vehicle.

Uber is also expanding its physical presence in Houston in preparation for launching a robotaxi there. The company now has a 50,000 square feet warehouse and a dedicated shipping station that will serve as the center of its operations in the city.

The robotaxi deal provided a major boost to Nuro, an emerging self-driving car startup that has achieved huge success Main axis In 2024, it has moved away from building its own delivery robots to licensing its self-driving technology to automakers and other partners. That has also helped Lucid, which has struggled to sell its electric vehicles on a large scale — a familiar challenge for most EV startups competing in a market still dominated by Tesla.

Uber has made direct investments in both Nuro & About 500 million dollars As first reported by TechCrunch in May — and by Lucid. The passenger transport giant has committed to this Investment of 500 million dollars At Lucid, a commitment to invest $500 million in the electric car maker and purchase at least 35,000 Lucid vehicles that are ready for robotaxis.