Zoox, the Amazon subsidiary developing purpose-built autonomous vehicles, has struck a deal with Uber to have its vehicles available in the Uber app in Las Vegas this summer.
The partnership — which represents its first deal with a third-party platform — will allow Zoox to offer rides on both its own app and in the Uber app.
Integration in Los Angeles is scheduled to follow next year.
Uber’s Strategy
The deal fits Uber’s strategy with multiple autonomous vehicle partners, including the partnership announced with Nuro and Lucid Motors last year.
The ride-hailing company said it will invest $300 million in building the “next-generation premium global robotaxi program.”
It to deploy “20,000 or more” Lucid vehicles equipped with the Nuro’s Level 4 autonomy system technology over six years.
According to Lucid‘s interim CEO Marc Winterhoff on Tuesday, all engineering testing vehicles had since been delivered and the program remains on track to debut in late 2026.
Last month, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that autonomous vehicles deployed via Uber achieve meaningfully higher utilization than those operated on standalone platforms — with trips per vehicle per day running 30% higher on Uber, according to his estimates.
The company is aiming to offer driverless rides across 15 cities by the end of 2026.
It already has driverless options in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas and Phoenix in the US, as well as several Middle East cities.
Zoox
Zoox‘s CEO Aicha Evans has positioned the Uber deal as a means of embedding its vehicles into the daily routines of riders who already use the platform — removing the friction of a standalone app and placing autonomous rides alongside familiar options.
The company’s testing fleet currently operates in the San Francisco Bay Area, Las Vegas, Seattle, Austin, Miami, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Washington DC.
Earlier this week, Zoox announced that it had expanded its operations in the South to Phoenix and Dallas.
Amazon’s backing has secured Zoox a 220,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in San Francisco, with a production target of 10,000 vehicles per year at full capacity.
Catching Up to Waymo
Alphabet’s Waymo remains a leader in the Robotaxi segment in the US, having surpassed 400,000 weekly rides across six metro areas in February.
The company now operates commercially in 10 cities, with London and Tokyo in its sights for 2026.
Zoox‘s approach is different. While Waymo uses modified Jaguar I-PACE SUVs, the Amazon subsidiary has developed its own model, purpose-built for the service.
It has no steering wheel, inward-facing seating, and a form factor designed from the ground up for passenger rides rather than adapted from a consumer car.
Tesla is set to begin production of its Cybercab model in April, planning for 2 million units built annually after an initially slower ramp.
AV Regulation
The Zoox-Uber deal lands as Washington moves to clear the regulatory runway for the broader industry.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the Self-Drive Act in a narrow 12–11 vote, sending the bipartisan measure to the full chamber.
The bill would create national safety standards for autonomous vehicles, override the current patchwork of state regulations, and permit automakers to build cars without steering wheels or other manual controls — a provision directly relevant to purpose-built robotaxis like Zoox‘s.
The committee vote had been preceded by testimony from Waymo and Tesla executives, who urged Congress to act quickly or risk ceding ground to Chinese competitors.
Waymo disclosed for the first time last month that approximately 70 human agents are on duty at any given time to provide guidance to its robotaxis, with “approximately half” of them located in two cities in the Philippines.
