Nuro’s engineering fleet for its robotaxi program with Lucid Motors and Uber now comprises nearly 100 Gravity vehicles, the company disclosed on Thursday.
“Now almost 100 vehicles strong, our Robotaxi Engineering Fleet is gathering diverse real-world data and testing autonomous driving in multiple US cities and states ahead of the launch of our autonomous ride-hail service,” Nuro wrote on X.
Autonomous on-road testing has been underway in the Bay Area since December, led by Nuro — and using engineering prototypes supervised by human operators.
Lucid had revealed last October that it would deploy “more than 100” Gravity vehicles equipped with Nuro’s Level 4 autonomous driving technology.
During its debut Investor Day last week, interim CEO Marc Winterhoff revealed that all engineering test vehicles for the program have been delivered.
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.”
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.
While the 20,000-unit commitment remains the only publicly confirmed fleet order, Uber‘s President and Chief Operating Officer Andrew Macdonald shared during last week’s event that the ride-hailing company is finalizing an agreement to deploy Lucid’s upcoming midsize platform as well.
Reacting to Nuro’s X post on Thursday, Macdonald wrote that “the fleet is scaling.”
Nuro Integration
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, backed by SoftBank, Chipotle, and Toyota’s Woven Capital, handles the installation and calibration of sensors and self-driving hardware.
The startup operates a 2021-built test facility in Las Vegas designed to replicate real-world traffic conditions.
There, Nuro recreates complex scenarios — from pedestrians appearing suddenly at night to erratic cyclists, work zones, and traffic light failures — to validate its self-driving system, known as the Nuro Driver.
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.
First 20,000 Units
Lucid‘s management said last week that the company’s robotaxi deal with Uber and Nuro is only the beginning of a major autonomous vehicle strategy.
Asked to quantify the partnership’s economics, the company’s CFO Taoufiq Boussaid confirmed the structure — 20,000 vehicles over six years, with Lucid providing the vehicle and handling part of the integration — but immediately pushed back on the 20,000 as a limit.
“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,” the CFO added. “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.”
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.
CFO Comments
Earlier this week, the company’s CFO Taoufiq Boussaid was questioned about the string of revenue from the Robotaxi deal with Uber and Nuro for Lucid.
Boussaid admitted that it is “the gold standard in this kind of business to secure recurring revenues,” with this being “how you spread the risk over time and this is how you give confidence on the validity of the business case.”
On the other side, Lucid‘s CFO highlighted that its approach means they “are also staying 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.
Despite having introduced the two-seat Lunar concept model last week, the company has not yet outlined what its operations would look like.
