Last week, electric vehicle maker Lucid Motors announced a partnership with ride-hailing giant Uber and autonomous driving company Nuro to deploy 20,000 Gravity robotaxis over the next six years.
As part of the deal, the ride hailing company will invest $300 million in Lucid and also acquire 20,000 SUVs.
While the funding provides an injection of capital, it is less than Lucid’s cash burn in a single quarter, as highlighted by Wall Street analysts.
Uber also invested “several hundred million dollars” in the privately held Nuro. However, neither of the companies disclosed the amount of the investment.
In a Bloomberg interview a few hours after the announcement, Nuro’s President Dave Ferguson said that “Uber is investing in Nuro in a standard equity stake.”
The tech company “wouldn’t mind” giving a number, but “there’s more sensitivity in other quarters,” Ferguson stated referring to Uber.
Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, two former principal Google engineers, co-founded Nuro in 2016 with Zhu serving as CEO.
Nuro has been doing fully driverless operations for over five years. However, it focused on autonomous delivery services up until two years ago — when they started licensing their tech towards other applications.
Questioned about what comes after last week’s partnership announcement, Ferguson said that Nuro “has basically provided a design template” to be integrated on Lucid vehicles.
For the mass production, which is planned to start next year, Nuro’s tech is going to be “integrated directly into the production line.” Then the vehicles are shipped to Uber, which will own and operate them.
Lucid Motors interim chief Marc Winterhoff did not disclose how much Uber paid for the 20,000 Gravity SUVs.
The retail price for the entry-level Gravity Grand Touring starts from $94,900 in the US.
Winterhoff said that the revenue will be disclosed once Lucid starts delivering the first units to Uber.
The first batch of robotaxis are planned for “a major US city” in late 2026 with Uber deciding on which city it will roll out, according to Lucid‘s interim chief.
In a series of videos published on X during this week, Nuro showed that the integration of the company’s tech in the first Lucid Gravity was done in April.
While pointing to the first prototype vehicle that Nuro built, Ferguson said that the Lucid Gravity SUV that Nuro “took as stock” had “all of the hardware and software” integrated in “about five weeks.”
However, in the Bloomberg interview last week, Ferguson had mentioned that the first prototype of the vehicle had been ready “in something like seven weeks,” saying the timeline was “unheard of” both for Nuro and the industry.
Comenting on Nvidia’s role in these vehicles, Ferguson said that they provide the SoC (system on a chip) that powers Nuro’s computer — which has been “dramatically simplified” by using the Thor chip, leading to a “significant” cost reduction.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and Lucid’s backer PIF invested $3.5 billion in Uber, then one of its first major overseas deals and a symbol of its newly launched Vision 2030 strategy.
The Lucid tie-up follows last week’s Uber announcement of expansion with Chinese autonomous driving startup WeRide, targeting 15 global cities over five years — including European ones.
Last week, Lucid shares soared over 60% immediately after the partnership was revealed, before pairing some of those gains in the following sessions.
On the same day of the announcement, the company also disclosed plans to make a 1:10 reverse stock split.
Lucid shares jumped 10.99% on Tuesday and are, as of the time of writing, trading 0.3% higher during Wednesday’s pre-market session.
