Uber Invests $1.25 Billion in Rivian Robotaxi Partnership

According to CNBC, Uber will invest $1.25 billion in Rivian, an electric-vehicle maker. In return, Uber will get up to 50,000 robotaxis across several countries through 2031. The first deployment is set for San Francisco and Miami in 2028 and will expand to 25 cities by 2031. 

More About the Deal

The press release mentioned one specific part of the deal: Uber buying 10,000 autonomous versions of the R2, with an option to buy 40,000 more starting in 2030. 

As a result of this announcement, Rivian's stock jumped in premarket trading on Thursday, rising 10% and closing 3% higher, while Uber fell 1%. 

CNBC notes that this deal "is the latest in a resurgence of announcements about autonomous vehicles and robotaxis," mentioning that these companies are trying to capitalize on what investors believe could be a "multitrillion-dollar market." 

Following the signing of the deal, Uber is expected to invest an initial $300 million in R2 sales to consumers beginning in the spring. That investment will be about 19.55 million shares. Uber will also pay a licensing fee for the use of Rivian's autonomous driving software. 

Uber and Rivian CEOs Speak Out 

This deal comes after Rivian struck a $5.8 billion software agreement with Volkswagen, announced at the end of 2024. There's also been plenty of robotaxi news, including announcements from EV maker Lucid, Zoox (Amazon), Sellantis (the parent company of Chrysler), and Nvidia. 

“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 U.S.,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in the release. “That vertical integration, combined with data from their growing consumer vehicle base and experience managing the complexities of commercial fleets, gives us conviction to set these ambitious but achievable targets.”

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe has been talking about how the company wants to get into robotaxis during calls like its third-quarter results call and the "Autonomy and AI Day" in December. 

“The scale of Rivian’s growing data flywheel coupled with RAP1 [Rivian Autonomy Processor], 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,” Scaringe said in the Thursday release.