Uber Technologies Inc. will soon let customers hail robotaxis from Amazon.com Inc.’s Zoox in Los Angeles.
The ridesharing giant has reached a multiyear agreement with Amazon’s autonomous driving unit, Uber and Zoox said Wednesday.
Zoox vehicles will be available on the Uber app starting in Las Vegas this summer and Los Angeles, next year.
At launch, Uber riders will have the opportunity to match with a Zoox robotaxi on eligible trips. It’s the first time Zoox has partnered with a third party.
Uber and Zoox didn’t disclose revenue-sharing details or say whether Uber customers would be charged a fare for riding in a Zoox vehicle. (Zoox currently doesn’t levy a fee.)
Uber investors cheered the news, sending the company’s shares up 4.1% before markets opened in New York. Amazon’s stock rose less than 1%. Tesla Inc., which operates a limited robotaxi service, initially fell before paring its losses.
On Tuesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced the opening of a public comment period on the commercial launch of Zoox’s steering-wheel-free robotaxi, a key step toward launching paid rides.
The market for autonomous ride-hailing and robotaxi services is heating up. Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo has the widest network of commercial service and runs 24/7, charging a fare in half a dozen cities in the US. The company currently provides about 400,000 paid rides per week across the six cities.
By contrast Zoox, acquired by Amazon in 2020, has been more cautious and careful to deploy a service on public streets. It has a purpose-built robotaxi with inward-facing seats and no steering wheel, pedals or other driver controls.
Zoox already runs a limited driverless service on the Las Vegas strip and in San Francisco, while conducting trials in other US cities. Testing is done with retrofitted Toyota sport utility vehicles, with driver controls and often a safety driver behind the wheel.
Zoox will continue to operate a service through its app in Las Vegas and, later Los Angeles, even after Uber starts offering rides.
Uber already arranges Waymo rides on its app in Austin, Atlanta and Phoenix. But the ride-hailing giant also competes with Waymo, which has been expanding its own service into more US cities — a development that has some Wall Street analysts questioning Uber’s future as a market leader.
The Zoox partnership could provide fresh validation for Uber’s bid to become the leading aggregator of robotaxi services and a commercial partner for companies developing self-driving technology.
Uber has more than 20 autonomous partnerships in the US and abroad, mainly in the Middle East. It has so far made no new announcements with Waymo to expand in more cities beyond Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta. But Uber plans to deploy robotaxis in more than 10 cities this year with other partners, including Lucid Group Inc., Wayve Technologies Ltd. and Baidu Inc.
Ludlow and Lung write for Bloomberg.
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