Rivian and Uber entered into a major partnershipthe first having to provide the second with 50,000 robotaxis in deal worth $1.25 billion in financing. It starts with Uber purchasing 10,000 Rivian R2 robotaxis, which will be deployed in San Francisco and Miami by 2028.
If all goes well, Uber will acquire 40,000 additional robotaxis by 2030. The company plans to expand the initiative to 25 major cities by 2031. The total investment of $1.25 billion depends on several autonomous steps, according to a report from Yahoo Finance. However, Uber has already committed $300 million as an initial investment, although this is subject to regulatory approval.
A fleet of Robotaxis R2 arrives exclusively at @Uber. ⚡🌿
Today, we announced a partnership to help both companies accelerate their autonomous vehicle projects in 25 cities in the United States, Canada and Europe by the end of 2031. https://t.co/6WazhobMyr pic.twitter.com/9fzgmIsOd5
– Rivian (@Rivian) March 19, 2026
The announcement actually sent Rivian shares up ten percent before stabilizing at around four percent. This speaks to the optimism surrounding the deal, given that almost every other stock is currently down due to certain geopolitical concerns.
This isn’t Uber’s only partnership for this sort of thing. It’s a giant corporation with robo-taxi hands in a number of cookie jars. The ride-hailing platform recently unveiled its own in-house robotaxis fleet, which is a design partnership with Lucid and Nuro.
Our partner @nvidia has long contributed to fueling the audiovisual ecosystem
We are now working together to bring the fully NVIDIA-driven L4 robotaxis to market. @Uber platform in 28 cities by 2028, starting with Los Angeles and SF next year https://t.co/CeaxZ7dL8Z pic.twitter.com/2d2Fhol5S0
– Andrew Macdonald (@andrewgordonmac) March 16, 2026
It also announced a partnership with NVIDIA to develop software-driven autonomous vehicleswhose deployment will begin in Los Angeles and San Francisco by the first half of 2027. Uber even teams up with Waymo to bring robotaxis to cities like Atlanta and Austin.
As for Rivian, the company is slowly but surely becoming America’s “cool” electric vehicle maker, a position once held by Tesla. It just announced pricing and availability for the highly anticipated R2 electric SUV. It arrives this spring, with a starting cost of $58,000. A cheaper model is expected to go on sale in 2027.
This article was originally published on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/rivian-will-provide-50000-robotaxis-to-uber-in-a-deal-worth-125-billion-153856638.html?src=rss
