Uber (UBER) and Lucid (LCID) are expanding their robotaxi venture, naming Houston as the second planned market for the autonomous ride-hailing service the two companies are building with self-driving startup Nuro.
The announcement comes weeks after Lucid named Silvio Napoli as its incoming chief executive and secured $750 million in fresh capital – $550 million from an affiliate of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and $200 million from an Uber subsidiary – underscoring how tightly the two PIF-backed companies have combined their autonomous futures.
Houston will follow the program’s first market, the San Francisco Bay Area, where Uber still plans to launch commercially later this year. The Texas service is slated for mid-2027, with dozens more cities to come over the following years.
Autonomous on-road testing is already underway in Houston. Uber said its robotaxi engineering fleet now spans nearly 100 vehicles across California and Texas, running around the clock.
Separately, Uber has secured a 50,000-square-foot facility and a dedicated charging pitstop in Houston to serve as the operational depot for the program, handling charging, maintenance, repairs, and cleaning. It will draw more than 4 megawatts of power and house 40 fast chargers and 15 maintenance bays, with groundbreaking planned for early 2027.
Under Uber Autonomous Solutions, the fleet-management unit it unveiled in February, the company has pulled infrastructure and logistics in-house. It is a part of the business that Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Waymo and Tesla (TSLA) also have to solve.
The robotaxi version of the Lucid Gravity SUV used for the service carries a next-generation sensor array – high-resolution cameras, solid-state lidar, and radar for 360-degree perception – topped by a purpose-built roof halo designed to maximize visibility. Pending final validation, production is expected to begin at Lucid’s Arizona factory later this year.
The partnership, first struck in July 2025, calls for Uber to deploy 35,000 or more Lucid vehicles – the Gravity plus a future midsize model – equipped with the Nuro Driver over six years. The program cleared a few important regulatory milestones: Nuro won a California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) pilot permit in early May, and a state DMV driverless testing permit in April, and Uber, Nuro, and Lucid employees have been taking test rides on the platform since April.
The developments come at a crucial time for both Uber and Lucid. While Uber chugs along as a logistics and demand-matching giant for mobility, Lucid is suffering from cash burn and a stock down around 60% over the past year.
