If you see a Lucid Gravity SUV with sensors and a self-driving system developed by Nuro driving around San Francisco, chances are it’s carrying an Uber employee.
Some Uber employees can now request Lucid robotaxi rides through the Uber app. This is the latest stage of testing ahead of a public release scheduled for later this year. Nuro, which provided the latest information in a blog post on Monday, told TechCrunch that the vehicle is operating in self-driving mode, with a human safety operator behind the wheel as backup.
Although this is far from a public release, it shows the progress both companies have made since announcing the partnership and multi-million dollar investment in July 2025. Uber will invest $300 million in Lucid and separately agreed to buy “at least” 20,000 of Lucid’s new Gravity SUVs over the next six years.
These EVs are equipped with Nuro’s self-driving car system powered by Nvidia’s Drive AGX Thor computer. Unveiled in January, the Lucid Gravity robotaxi is equipped with high-resolution cameras, solid-state LiDAR sensors, and radar to help self-driving systems recognize and operate in real-world environments.
Uber also invested an undisclosed amount of “hundreds of millions of dollars” in Neuro.
The plan is for Uber to own and operate a premium robotaxi service, possibly with the help of a third party. Production of these modified Lucid Gravity vehicles is expected to begin in late 2026, according to regulatory filings posted last year.
Nuro completed closed-course testing and began the first public road tests of its self-driving Lucid Gravity SUV late last year. Nuro currently has 100 Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with self-driving systems in its engineering fleet, which are used to collect real-world data and test self-driving in multiple U.S. cities and states.
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According to Nuro, employee test drives help teams evaluate how the autonomous driving stack, vehicle, and rider experience work together and perform in a real-world operating environment. The team will also be able to test how well the vehicles handle picking up and dropping off passengers, a notoriously tricky maneuver in autonomous ride-hailing.
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