Welcome to the Ride AI newsletter: your weekly digest of news and intelligence at the intersection of technology and transportation.

Here’s What You Need To Know Today.

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Uber, Lucid, and Nuro are partnering to put 20,000 robotaxis on the road.

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The robotaxis will be Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with the Nuro Driver hardware and software and will be deployed over the course of six years, starting with a "major US city" next year. Uber and its fleet partners will own and operate the robotaxi fleet. As part of the deal, Uber will also make "multi-hundred-million dollar investments" in both Nuro and Lucid. Uber's investment in Lucid is purported to be $300 million. However, Uber's investment in Nuro currently remains undisclosed.

I was curious about the structure of this deal, as Lucid had just announced last Wednesday that it was launching its own hands-free ADAS system later this month, independent of Nuro and Uber. So I investigated further, and here is what I discovered:

• Nuro is only providing the software and guidance.
• Lucid is building all the extra hardware necessary for L4 self-driving, including the tophat and retrofits necessary for the Gravity SUV.
• The partnership was announced internally four months ago.
• DVT bring-up took around four months from internal announcement, which means it was only just completed at press time. • The unit shown in the announcement video embedded above is still mostly 3D-printed and not a production unit.
• Internal sentiments indicate the stated timeline is realistic and quite likely to be achieved in terms of hardware and software ability. If there are any delays, they are likely to be operational.

It seems Uber, Lucid, and Nuro are extremely confident in a full launch next year. As much as I love Waymo, I'm eagerly awaiting a challenger to its current market dominance.

Uber is also partnering with Baidu’s Apollo Go to deploy “thousands” of robotaxis outside of China.

While the specific areas haven't been announced yet, the two companies are expected to do initial rollouts in Asian countries and the Middle East later this year.

Baidu already operates its Apollo Go service in several Middle Eastern cities, including Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It is currently unclear if those existing service areas would transition to Uber or if they would continue to operate independently. I would, however, expect Apollo Go to operate these new deployments with its 6th-generation robotaxi platform, which I put to the test earlier this year. Apollo Go has completed 11 million passenger rides globally as of May.

Ex-Waymo engineers have launched an autonomous construction equipment company called Bedrock Robotics.

PC: Bedrock Robotics

The company has already been operating for more than a year. Now it's coming out of stealth with an $80 million funding round led by Eclipse and 8VC.

Much like Waymo, Bedrock Robotics will focus on developing retrofit components for existing construction vehicles and equipment. The company will focus on "upgrading existing fleets with sensors, compute, and intelligence that understands project goals, adapts to changing conditions, and executes work around the clock."

Bedrock Robotics was founded by ex-Waymo and Twilio personnel. CEO Boris Sofman previously led Waymo Via and co-founded Anki Robotics, which made the Cozmo desktop robot. CTO Kevin Peterson was previously head of perception for Waymo Via, and VP of Engineering Ajay Gummalla was previously director of systems and programs at Waymo. Co-founder Tom Eliaz was previously VP of engineering at Twilio.

In Other News…

• Waymo expands Austin, TX territory to 90 square miles, beating out Tesla’s phallic shaped expansion.
• Video: Waymos spotted testing in the Big Apple

Questions and Answers

While we didn’t receive any questions we could provide an answer to in this newsletter, I encourage you to ask any questions you may have in the comments below and we will try to get you the answer!

Alright, that’s it from me… until next week. If you enjoy this newsletter, share it with your friend, colleague, or boss. Thank you for reading; Sophia out!

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