A testing vehicle from Nuro’s engineering fleet for the upcoming Lucid–Uber robotaxi program was spotted last Friday in Houston.
A Lucid Gravity equipped with Nuro’s rooftop sensor module was spotted in Houston by social media user ‘CordtCourtin,’ who posted a screenshot showing the vehicle crossing a road ahead.
It was not the first sighting in the city, however.
Last month, Reddit user ‘DrJBell’ posted an image of a similar vehicle in the same area.
In the thread, user ‘understando’ wrote that “these things are all over the Heights,” adding that the vehicles’ operational base is located near Shepherd Drive, across from MKT — a mixed-use development in the historic Houston Heights neighborhood.
Neither Lucid nor Nuro has publicly identified Houston as a testing or deployment location for the robotaxi program.
Lucid has referred only to the San Francisco Bay Area — where supervised on-road testing began in December — as the site for both current testing and the first commercial deployment, expected later this year.
On its website, Nuro states that the three partners plan to “build and deploy 20,000 or more Lucid-Nuro robotaxis in dozens of US and international markets,” without specifying which cities beyond the Bay Area.
As of Monday, it remains unclear whether testing has been expanded to Texas.
Nuro’s Houston Business
Nuro maintains a facility and fleet operations in Houston, where the company has been running driverless vehicles on public roads since 2019 — making it one of its earliest markets outside California.
Additionally, job postings and company pages list Houston as an active location for roles such as Autonomous Vehicle Operators and Vehicle Care Representatives.
Nuro’s core Houston business remains autonomous last-mile delivery, particularly groceries through Kroger, which has been running reliably for over seven years.
Walmart and Domino’s also previously served as testing partners in the market.
Last week, the company posted on X that “day and night, rain or shine, our Robotaxi Engineering Fleet is always in motion as we train and test our autonomous ride-hailing service.”
Nuro added that the these vehicles are “coming soon to the San Francisco Bay Area.”
Engineering Fleet
Lucid delivered its first engineering prototype to Nuro in September for testing, marking an early step toward building the eventual fleet that will operate exclusively on Uber’s app.
According to Lucid, the first robotaxi prototype was already operating autonomously at Nuro’s Las Vegas proving grounds as of mid-July.
The prototype was assembled at Lucid’s Arizona plant and later transported to Nuro’s headquarters in Newark, California, where engineers integrated the autonomous systems.
Nuro completed the installation of Level 4 systems on the first Lucid-based robotaxi — a Gravity SUV — less than two months after the partnership was announced.
Autonomous on-road testing has been underway in the Bay Area since December, led by Nuro — and using engineering prototypes supervised by human operators.
Nuro’s engineering fleet for its robotaxi program with Lucid Motors and Uber now comprises nearly 100 Gravity vehicles, the company disclosed earlier this month.
Production of the final robotaxi variant is pending completion of safety validation, with a commercial service start targeted for late 2026 — a timeline that Winterhoff said remains on track.
Uber Investment
Uber invested $300 million in Lucid last July as part of a deal that also included a commitment to purchase at least 20,000 Gravity SUVs over six years.
The ride-hailing company also invested in Nuro, though only the Lucid figure was publicly disclosed then.
Nuro later confirmed that Uber‘s stake was part of a $203 million funding round raised in August that also included Nvidia.
The company’s President Dave Ferguson said at the time that Uber took a standard equity stake but declined to share specifics, noting there was “more sensitivity in other quarters.”
First 20,000 Units
Lucid‘s management said last month that the company’s robotaxi deal with Uber and Nuro is only the beginning of a major autonomous vehicle strategy.
“Obviously, 20,000 over six years is a drop of water for us,” Boussaid said. “So I mean, we do believe that this is the first, it’s a start. So the first 20,000 units will be serving a very limited number of cities. There is a reasonable expectation to assume that this figure will grow in the future.”
Winterhoff reinforced the point, saying Lucid would not have entered the agreement if 20,000 units were the entirety of the opportunity.
“Quite honestly, we probably wouldn’t have done it if it would only be about 20,000,” he said. “We looked at the whole robotaxi market. Is it now finally becoming real? And I think there’s a growing consensus that we’re now at an inflection point where the technology is finally there.”
While the 20,000-unit commitment remains the only publicly confirmed fleet order, Uber‘s President and Chief Operating Officer Andrew Macdonald recently shared that the ride-hailing company is finalizing an agreement to deploy Lucid’s upcoming midsize platform as well.
Winterhoff framed robotaxis as one of two strategic pillars for Lucid‘s autonomy ambitions — the other being personally owned vehicles.
For the latter, Lucid is working with Nvidia rather than Nuro. The two tracks are separate and serve different markets.
Lucid‘s CFO highlighted last month that its approach to self-driving allows the company to stay away “from whatever is associated with the capital-intensive business.”
At the same time, Boussaid doesn’t think the EV maker “will ever have a model where we own the assets and we generate revenue out of it,” he added.
The company introduced a two-seat Lunar concept model at its Investor Day. However, it has not yet outlined what its operations would look like.
