Look Out Tesla There’s A New Robotaxi In Town

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been taking his share of flack for promising much on robotaxis and delivering little while other firms take off. He better pick up the pace before Tesla finds itself at the back of a large and growing pack. Among other rivals, the US-headquartered, Saudi-backed EV startup Lucid Motors has thrown its hat into the robotaxi ring under a partnership with Uber, thereby hooking itself up with the leading car rental firm Hertz as well. Yes, that Hertz.

Lucid Robotaxis Are Coming

In terms of competing with Tesla for a share of the luxury EV market in the US, Lucid has a lot of catching up to do. The company launched in 2007, just a few years after Tesla. Unlike Tesla, Lucid did not receive a generous $465 million loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy to help kick it into high gear. However, the company did get a healthy assist from other investors, including the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, where support for the vehicle electrification movement has been emerging as an economic development strategy.

Although Lucid’s US sales are still minuscule compared to Tesla’s, the company is one of the few to see sales increase after US President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress took a chopper to the $7,500 federal EV tax credit last September. As anticipated, many automakers saw their year-on-year EV sales plunge in the 4th quarter of 2025 compared to Q4 2024, but not Lucid. CleanTechnica noted an increase of 912 sales for the Lucid Gravity SUV, from 230 in Q4 2024 to 1,142 in Q4 2025. The Lucid Air sedan also came out ahead, rising 625 sales from 2,563 to 3,188.

The Uber connection surfaced last year, when Lucid joined Uber in partnership with the autonomous vehicle and robotics firm Nuro.

“Bringing together the comfort, spaciousness and technology of the Lucid Gravity, the scalability and proven capability of the Nuro Driver™ Level 4 autonomy system, and Uber’s vast global marketplace, we are set to deliver a robotaxi offering unlike anything else on the road today,” Lucid enthused in a press statement announcing the new partnership.

Lucid delivered the first vehicles to Nuro for testing in September. The testing regimen included Nuro’s test track in Las Vegas and supervised drives around the San Francisco Bay Area, followed by unsupervised drives in December.

Plans are already in the works to leverage Uber’s network in other cities in the US and globally, with Lucid ramping up production at its Casa Grande, Arizona, factory to meet demand.

The Perfect Electric Robotaxi Is Coming For Your Fossil Fuels

The three partners displayed the new robotaxi at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, where they pitched key features, including:

• A next-gen sensor array featuring high-resolution cameras, solid-state lidar sensors, and radars that provides 360-degree perception.
• Halo-mounted integrated LEDs help riders easily identify the correct vehicle, display rider initials, and provide clear status updates from pickup through dropoff.
• An intuitive in-ride experience … with interactive screens that let riders personalize their autonomous journey.
• In-vehicle visualization that shows what the robotaxi sees and its planned path in real-time.
• A versatile, spacious layout with configurations that comfortably fit up to six passengers and offer generous luggage space. The partners also noted that the new robotaxi “leverages compute based on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Thor, part of the NVIDIA DRIVE Hyperion platform, supporting the real-time AI processing and system integration required for advanced autonomous driving.”

Lucid also emphasized the new vehicle’s deep roots in its driver-centric EVs. “The things that make a Lucid an exceptional vehicle are essentially the same things that make it a great robotaxi. Offering an incredible range, comfortable seating for 6 passengers, a premium experience and cavernous interior space for everyone’s luggage, you have a winning combination,” Lucid enthused.

Apparently, Uber has already seen enough to convince itself. On April 14, Lucid reminded everyone that Uber has committed to at least 35,000 Lucid vehicles that will be exclusive to Uber’s forthcoming robotaxi service.

“The company has also committed to an additional $200 million investment in Lucid, raising Uber’s total investments to $500 million to date,” Lucid reported. The automaker additionally took note of a new $550 million investment from the PIF affiliate Ayar Third Investment.

The Hertz Connection

Hertz entered the picture on April 30, when it issued a joint press release with Uber to announce two strategic partnerships alongside the launch of the new Hertz-affiliated firm Oro Mobility.

Oro describes itself as a fleet management firm focusing on safety and vehicle quality, supporting both drivers and robotaxis. Oro piloted its driver-led management system for Uber in Atlanta last year. The company’s driver platform has now been activated in San Francisco and Los Angeles. North Jersey will be on board soon as well.

The robotaxi partnership is expected to launch in the San Francisco Bay Area later this year, with additional locations under consideration for next year.

“Through its partnerships with Uber, Oro will deliver scalable operational and maintenance services across both autonomous and driver‑led operations in key U.S. markets, reflecting the breadth of the companies’ collaboration across multiple mobility models,” Hertz and Uber summarized in a press statement.

If you’re thinking Hertz may give Tesla a crack at its robotaxi business, maybe. Or maybe not, considering Hertz’s past experience with Tesla.

Back in 2021 Hertz announced ambitious plans to add 100,000 Teslas to its fleet by the end of 2022. Only 35,000 were reportedly purchased and by 2023 the bloom was off the rose. Maintenance costs for the Tesla EVs were higher than expected, renters were more accident-prone when driving a Tesla, and the cars were depreciating at an alarming rate. In addition, the public EV charging station network was not as advanced as it is today, and Hertz reportedly neglected to advise new EV drivers on how to recharge their batteries.

The Tesla experience did not poison Hertz against EVs forever and all time, as the new partnership with Lucid and Uber demonstrates. “Oro will support Uber’s autonomous robotaxi program of Lucid vehicles equipped with Nuro AV technology, providing day-to-day vehicle asset management, including charging, maintenance, repairs, cleaning, and depot staffing,” the partners explain.

As for Tesla, Musk has not done the brand any favors in recent years, having aligned himself with the white supremacist movement among other missteps in support of US President Donald Trump.

Don’t just take our word for it. “‘Whites are a rapidly dying minority,’” Musk wrote in January in a post on his social media site X that has garnered more than 17 million views and 150,000 likes,” the Washington Post reported earlier today, noting that Musk has almost tripled his musings on race so far in 2026 compared to the previous two years, to 850.

Really, 850 posts on race? Where’s the fire? If you have any thoughts about that, drop a note in the comment thread.

Photo (cropped, lightened): The US startup Lucid Motors has hooked up with Uber and the autonomous mobility specialist Nuro in a robotaxi partnership supported by the new Hertz fleet management affiliate Oro (courtesy of Nuro).