Uber and Rivian are partnering to deploy up to 50,000 autonomous R2 robotaxis across 25 cities by 2031, with Uber investing $1.25 billion contingent on Rivian hitting autonomy milestones.
Uber and Rivian announced Thursday a partnership to deploy up to 50,000 fully autonomous robotaxis over the next several years, with Uber committing $1.25 billion in investment through 2031 contingent on Rivian meeting a series of autonomy development milestones. The deal is subject to regulatory approval.
Uber will make an initial investment of $300 million at signing. The first phase of the partnership calls for deploying 10,000 autonomous Rivian R2 vehicles as robotaxis in several cities, beginning with San Francisco and Miami in 2028. The companies said they expect to expand to 25 cities by 2031, with the option to negotiate the purchase of up to 40,000 additional vehicles beginning in 2030 — bringing the total potential fleet to 50,000. Rivian’s robotaxis will be available exclusively through Uber’s app.
The inclusion of European cities in the longer-term expansion plans is notable, given that Rivian has yet to establish any commercial presence outside North America.
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A Vote of Confidence in Unproven Technology
The deal represents a significant bet on autonomy capabilities that Rivian has largely yet to demonstrate publicly. The company rolled out a hands-free highway driving feature for its second-generation R1 vehicles in December 2025, covering 3.1 million miles of road in the United States and Canada. Later this year, it expects to release point-to-point hands-free driving that can navigate turns, intersections and highway on- and off-ramps. Rivian also plans to add lidar sensors — a hardware component considered essential for Level 4 autonomy, in which a vehicle can handle all driving tasks without human intervention in defined conditions — to its R2 vehicles later in 2026.
The R2 itself is scheduled to launch later this year, meaning Rivian is simultaneously ramping up consumer vehicle production while developing the autonomous systems that the Uber partnership depends on.
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Timing and Financial Context
The investment arrives at a critical moment for Rivian. The company entered 2026 with approximately $6 billion in cash, including around $1 billion from its partnership with Volkswagen, but is expected to spend upwards of $2.5 billion this year ramping up R2 production. The $300 million initial payment from Uber provides some relief, though it covers only a fraction of that outlay.
For Uber, the Rivian deal follows a pattern the company has been building for several years. The ride-hailing giant has struck partnerships with a wide range of autonomous vehicle developers — including Waymo, Motional, Nuro and Wayve — as well as automakers including Lucid and Volkswagen. The strategy is to position Uber as the default consumer platform for autonomous mobility regardless of which underlying hardware and software ultimately prevails.
The terms of the Rivian agreement closely mirror those of Uber’s deal with Lucid last summer, including the $300 million initial investment and the commitment to deploy tens of thousands of robotaxis. The similarity suggests Uber has developed a repeatable deal structure for bringing autonomous vehicle partners into its network.
Whether Uber can remain commercially relevant — and continue to provide income for the millions of drivers who currently depend on it — as autonomous vehicles gradually displace human drivers remains the central unanswered question hanging over all of these partnerships.
