Uber And Nuro Begin Internal Trials Of Lucid Robotaxis In San Francisco

Selected Uber staff can now hail autonomous Lucid Gravity SUVs through the app as the companies move toward a planned public debut later this year.

Uber employees in San Francisco have started taking rides in modified Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with Nuro’s autonomous driving technology, the companies confirmed. The vehicles are running in driverless mode during trips but keep a trained safety driver at the wheel to intervene if needed, according to company statements. The move is an internal testing step ahead of a broader rollout that the partners hope to open to paying customers later this year.

The collaboration between ride-hailing giant and autonomous-vehicle developer builds on a deal announced last summer in which Uber committed $300 million to Lucid and agreed to purchase at least 20,000 of its Gravity SUVs over the coming six years. Uber also made a separate, large investment in Nuro, described in filings as totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. The Gravity used in the trials carries a suite of high-resolution cameras, solid-state lidar and radar sensors, and runs Nuro’s stack on Nvidia’s Drive AGX Thor compute platform.

Nuro says it has moved from closed-course validation to public-road trials and now has an engineering fleet of about one hundred Lucid vehicles collecting data in multiple U.S. markets. Company engineers use those miles to refine perception, vehicle control and the passenger interface. Internal rides let teams assess how the autonomous software, the hardware package and the experience for riders interact in everyday scenarios — including curbside pickups and drop-offs, which require precise, repeatable handling.

Transportation analysts say staff-only trials are a normal, cautious step for commercial robotaxi services. One analyst noted that having a human safety operator remains important while software is tuned to handle urban complexity. Operational critics add that the hardest work may not be driving itself but reliably managing curbside operations, passenger loading and other close-quarters tasks. For consumers, the companies say the goal is a premium robotaxi service operated by Uber — possibly with third-party partners handling day-to-day fleet operations — with production of the modified Gravity slated to begin in late 2026, according to regulatory disclosures.