In another big move in the robotaxi space, Rivian (RIVN) will supply Uber (UBER) with up to 50,000 fully autonomous robotaxis in exchange for up to $1.25 billion in funding.
Uber and its fleet partners will purchase 10,000 Rivian R2 robotaxis, with an option to purchase 40,000 more in 2030. Initial deployments will start in San Francisco and Miami in 2028, with plans to scale to 25 cities by 2031.
Uber’s $1.25 billion investment is subject to certain autonomous milestones, though an initial $300 million investment has been committed, subject to regulatory approval.
Rivian stock surged by more than 10% in early trading.
“We couldn’t be more excited about this partnership with Uber,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said in a statement. “The scale of Rivian’s growing data flywheel coupled with RAP1, our state of the art in-house inference platform, and our multi-modal perception platform make us incredibly excited for the rapid advancement of Rivian autonomy over the next couple of years.”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi added: “We’re big believers in Rivian’s approach — designing the vehicle, compute platform, and software stack together, while maintaining end-to-end control of scaled manufacturing and supply in the US.”
Uber’s investment in Rivian follows news made at Nvidia’s (NVDA) GTC this week, where Uber said it will begin rolling out a fleet of Level 4 autonomous vehicles in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2027, powered by Nvidia’s autonomous hardware and software solutions.
Uber’s deal with Rivian differs as the R2 robotaxis will use Rivian’s in-house autonomous solution.
Uber has signed several deals recently with outside partners to build up its robotaxi efforts. Uber and Lucid (LCID) have a deal to create a robotaxi service in US cities using up to 20,000 Lucid EVs powered by startup Nuro’s self-driving OS.
Uber also partnered with Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Waymo to summon Waymo robotaxis on Uber’s platforms in cities like Atlanta and Austin.
As for Rivian, a purchase of EVs in this size is a huge shot in the arm for the company looking to achieve profitability in the near term, just as it scales production of a new vehicle. Rivian believes increasing production and scale will aid in its quest for profitability, and the certainty of at least 10,000 Rivian R2s on order (plus $1.25 billion in investment) is a welcome safety net.
Rivian just last week revealed trim levels and pricing for the highly anticipated R2 midsize electric SUV, with the R2 Performance with Launch Package starting at $57,990 coming later this spring, and the R2 Premium starting at $53,990 coming in late 2026.
