Lucid‘s new Chief Financial Officer, Alexander De Bock, said the robotaxi the company is building with Nuro and Uber is “unlike anything else on the road today”. The executive made the comment after taking his first ride in the vehicle in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“Together we’re building a premium robotaxi experience that is scalable, rider-focused, and unlike anything else on the road today,” De Bock wrote in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday.
He rode with Michael Mancini, Nuro’s Chief Financial Officer, during a visit to the autonomous driving company, according to the post.
“What struck me most was just how natural the experience felt,” De Bock wrote. “Smooth turns and acceleration, awareness of everything happening around us, and, of course, a comfortable cabin to enjoy throughout the ride.”
“It’s still early, but I couldn’t be more energized about how we are transforming the future of mobility together,” he added.
The post did not say whether a safety operator was on board, or whether the car was driving itself for the whole trip.
New to the Role
Lucid named De Bock as its incoming CFO on July 1, replacing Taoufiq Boussaid, according to an 8-K filing.
He previously served as CFO of Metalsa and TI Automotive, and held finance roles at ZF Group and WABCO, the filing showed.
Boussaid became a Senior Advisor through December 31, according to a Lucid filing this month.
Nuro appointed Mancini as its CFO in May.
De Bock’s post follows a similar one by Lucid Chief Executive Officer Silvio Napoli, who rode in the robotaxi with Nuro co-founder Jiajun Zhu in June.
After that ride, Napoli said Lucid was preparing to build the first production-validation robotaxis at its Arizona factory.
From Announcement to Expansion
The partnership was announced on July 17, 2025, with Uber committing to deploy 20,000 or more Lucid Gravity vehicles running Nuro’s software over six years.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Nuro and Lucid on this new robotaxi program, purpose-built just for the Uber platform, to safely bring the magic of autonomous driving to more people across the world,” Khosrowshahi said at the time.
Winterhoff, then Interim CEO, said the deal “further validates Lucid’s fully redundant zonal architecture and highly capable platform as ideal for autonomous vehicles”.
“This is the start of our path to extend our innovation and technology leadership into this multi-trillion-dollar market,” he said.
Zhu said the partnership would “demonstrate what’s possible when proven AV technology meets real-world scale”.
Lucid shares soared by more than 36% on the day of the announcement.
Uber expanded the partnership in April 2026, raising its commitment to at least 35,000 vehicles and adding $200 million to its investment.
“We continue to deepen our commitments with both Lucid and Nuro because both companies are executing extremely well against our fast-moving shared roadmap,” Khosrowshahi said then.
Lucid’s shares rose 11% after that announcement.
“We have met all milestones so far in our joint project with Nuro to provide autonomous Lucid Gravities to Uber for commercial launch by the end of the year,” Winterhoff said on Lucid’s first-quarter call in May.
At its March investor day, Lucid projected more than $2 billion in revenue from robotaxi and other business-to-business partnerships by late decade.
‘Late 2026’ Launch
The three companies are targeting a commercial launch in the Bay Area by the end of 2026, using a robotaxi version of the Lucid Gravity SUV fitted with Nuro’s Level 4 self-driving system.
“Last month, we began delivering to Uber and Nuro production validation vehicles assembled at a facility in Coolidge, Arizona,” Napoli said on Lucid’s second-quarter earnings call on August 4.
“This will be followed by regular vehicle production in Q4, which in turn will be followed by a launch in late 2026,” he said.
Napoli called the program “a top priority and indeed a must-win project for Lucid”.
The engineering fleet numbers “nearly 100 vehicles” across the Bay Area and Houston, Lucid said in its second-quarter shareholder letter. Houston is scheduled to follow as the second market in mid-2027.
Nuro holds a California DMV permit for driverless testing of the Gravity. It also holds a California Public Utilities Commission permit to carry passengers with a safety driver.
It has not yet received the driverless deployment permits it needs from both regulators before it can offer rides to the public without a safety driver.
Uber employees began taking test rides with safety drivers in April.
What Uber Has Committed
Uber has agreed to buy, directly or through fleet operators it designates, at least 35,000 Lucid robotaxis, according to Lucid’s filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The commitment is split across two contracts. The first requires at least 10,000 Gravity robotaxis within a period after production starts.
The second covers at least 25,000 robotaxis on Lucid’s upcoming Midsize platform over six years. Production of that model is targeted for late 2028.
The purchase commitment is conditional on Lucid meeting Uber’s volume and specification requirements, the filings show. The vehicle price is redacted.
Uber has invested $500 million in Lucid. It holds 37,753,583 shares, or about 9.6% of the company as of June 30, according to Lucid’s quarterly report.
Lucid sells the vehicles outright and does not receive licensing or subscription revenue from the rides, then-Interim Chief Executive Officer Marc Winterhoff said on the company’s fourth-quarter 2025 call.
Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said in August that the Gravity robotaxi “can come in at kind of at the $70,000, $80,000 range”.
The Bay Area is also where Alphabet’s Waymo already runs paid driverless rides.
