Uber to Invest Up to $1.25 Billion in Rivian in Robotaxi Bet

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(Bloomberg) — Uber Technologies Inc. plans to invest as much as $1.25 billion in carmaker Rivian Automotive Inc. to help launch a robotaxi fleet that will be available in the US, Canada and Europe over the next five years.

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Uber or its fleet partners will buy 10,000 autonomous Rivian R2 robotaxis and make them available exclusively on the Uber app starting in San Francisco and Miami in 2028, the two companies said in a joint statement on Thursday.

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As part of the partnership, Uber has committed to an initial $300 million investment in Rivian, subject to regulatory approval. The funding may increase to as much as $1.25 billion through 2031 if certain undisclosed “autonomous milestones” are met, the companies said. They also have the option to negotiate the purchase of as many as 40,000 more Rivian robotaxis beginning in 2030.

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Shares of Rivian jumped 10% in premarket trading in New York. Uber’s stock was little changed. Rival Tesla Inc. fell about 1%.

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The deal represents one of Uber’s biggest robotaxi partnerships to date as its ride-hailing businesses faces competition from a wave of robotaxi operators. It is positioning itself as a commercialization partner that matches robotaxis to its global network of customers, while also setting up charging infrastructure support and facilitating connections with vendors who can manage fleet operations on the ground.

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San Francisco-based Uber has struck agreements with more than 20 self-driving car developers — most of them in the past year — including Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo and Amazon.com Inc.’s Zoox. 

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Uber, which sold its costly in-house self-driving arm in 2020, is pursuing a partnership approach as autonomous car companies begin to scale up production and operations in the next few years. It aims to offer robotaxis with its partners in a total of 15 markets by the end of this year, the company has said, but most won’t begin ramping up until 2027.

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Should all milestones in the Rivian deal be reached, the two companies will have deployed thousands of unsupervised robotaxis across 25 cities in the US, Canada and Europe by the end of 2031, according to the statement.

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By committing to purchase some robotaxis, Uber is experimenting with economic returns first-hand as it negotiates with banks or private equity players who may help finance the growing fleets in the future. Uber’s other existing deals include 20,000 Lucid Group Inc. vehicles outfitted with Nuro Inc. technology, and 5,000 Stellantis NV robotaxis.

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For Rivian, the Uber partnership builds on its broader autonomous ambitions. Ahead of the announcement, Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid told Bloomberg News at South by Southwest last week that autonomy “is one of the most critical areas of focus of the company.” 

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In December, the company unveiled an in-house autonomy chip that it plans to install in its upcoming R2 sport utility vehicles alongside a new lidar sensor starting in 2027. The R2 will also include 11 65-megapixel, high-definition cameras and five radar sensors.