Zoox and Uber to Team up on Robotaxis

Lucid unveils new robotaxi concept, Wayve partners with Uber and Nissan to launch robotaxis in Japan, and a portion of Google CEO pay now tied to Waymo

Top Stories of the Week

Uber Strikes Deal With Amazon’s Zoox to Offer Robotaxi Rides (link, no paywall). Uber has reached a multiyear partnership with Amazon’s autonomous vehicle unit Zoox that will allow riders to hail Zoox robotaxis directly through the Uber app. The companies plan to launch the service in Las Vegas starting in summer 2026, with an expansion to Los Angeles expected in 2027. Zoox will continue operating its own app as well, but the deal marks the first time the company has partnered with a third-party platform. Financial terms were not disclosed, and Uber riders will be matched with Zoox vehicles for eligible trips once the service launches.

Zoox is one of the highest profile AV partners Uber has landed so far, and they are also among the closest to commercial service. The company is currently offering point to point free rides in Las Vegas and free rides within a limited service area in San Francisco’s Mission District. And having just spent time in Las Vegas and San Francisco, it is hard to miss the growing Zoox presence. The vehicles seem to be everywhere around the Strip and nearby areas, suggesting the company is already building out a meaningful local fleet ahead of launch.

From a distribution standpoint, the partnership also makes a lot of sense. Riders have already shown they are willing to download dedicated apps for services like Waymo and potentially Tesla. But I am skeptical that most consumers will want to download a fifth ride hailing app just to access another robotaxi service. Plugging into an existing marketplace like Uber solves that problem by putting Zoox vehicles in front of millions of riders who already have the app. It also allows Uber to introduce Zoox rides at the right price point or trip type, making it easier to expose first time riders to the robotaxi experience within a familiar interface.

Zoox also looks like a strong partner for Uber from a scaling perspective. Backed by Amazon, the company has significant capital and manufacturing ambitions, including a purpose built robotaxi factory designed to eventually produce up to around 10,000 vehicles per year. If Zoox can ramp production anywhere close to that level, it could quickly become one of the largest autonomous fleets available to plug into Uber’s network.

Related: My first Zoox ride!

Uber, Hyundai-Backed Motional Relaunch Robotaxi Service in Vegas (link, no paywall). This relaunch will bring Motional’s Hyundai IONIQ 5 AVs back onto the Uber platform. Riders requesting regular UberX, Uber Electric or Uber Comfort rides through the Uber app may be matched with one of the AVs (similar to how it works in Austin and Atlanta - but there you have to opt in to AVs first), though the cars will initially include a human safety operator in the driver’s seat while the companies work toward fully driverless operations. The move revives a partnership that first launched robotaxi test rides in Las Vegas in 2022 but later paused as Motional de-prioritized commercial deployments amid a restructuring plan that included job cuts.

Related: My first Uber x Motional robotaxi ride from 2023 (link) was a bit shaky but I heard good things from a couple folks who took rides with Motional during this year’s CES.

Other Stuff

Lucid Motors shows off robotaxi concept called ‘Lunar’ (link). Lucid unveiled a new robotaxi concept called Lunar during its investor event in New York, offering an early look at how the company might approach fully autonomous mobility. The compact, two-seat vehicle is designed without a steering wheel or pedals and is expected to share a platform with Lucid’s upcoming midsize EV lineup to reduce costs and speed development.

Red states get Waymos. Blue states get studies. (X thread, full story).

Zoox starts mapping Dallas and Phoenix for its robotaxis (link). Mapping is being done using manually driven test vehicles as the first step toward deploying its autonomous robotaxis in the two cities. They plan to start with retrofitted SUVs collecting road data before eventually testing its self-driving system and later introducing its purpose-built robotaxis. With the addition of Dallas and Phoenix, Zoox now has a presence in 10 U.S. markets, including Atlanta, Austin, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

Uber, Nissan, Wayve Team Up to Offer Robotaxi Services in Tokyo (link, no paywall).

The joint initiative aims to integrate Wayve’s artificial-intelligence self-driving system into Nissan’s base vehicle, which can connect to Uber’s ride-hailing platform, they said.

Related: Qualcomm and Wayve Advance Production-Ready End-to-End AI for ADAS and Automated Driving (link). We will also dig deeper into the chip side of autonomy in next week’s podcast with Augustin Friedel.

US seeks comment on Zoox petition to deploy robotaxis without steering wheels (link).

Phoenix has lived with Waymos longer than any U.S. city. Here’s what its mayor learned (link).

WeRide and Geely Farizon to Deliver 2,000 Purpose-Built Robotaxi GXRs by 2026, Advancing Large-Scale Global Commercialization (link).

‘I’ve ridden in Waymo and Pony robotaxis. Both are really amazing. We got a look at the latest Pony cars today’ (link).

Alphabet ties a portion of Sundar Pichai’s pay to Waymo for the first time (link).

Alphabet’s board approved a $130 million Waymo BPU grant that vests based on growth in Waymo’s per-unit valuation over three years and can pay out at up to 200% of the target — pushing its potential value to $260 million. The compensation package also included $45 million BPUs for Wing, its drone delivery service.

Washington Post Editorial Board: California’s false choice on autonomous trucks (link, no paywall).

A bunch of Waymo Zeekrs awaiting retrofit at Long Beach Port (link).

Related: Waymo Factory AZ March 2026 Update (link).

What else we’re reading/listening to

Autonomy Insiders by Daniel Abreu Marques: Inside Bolt’s Autonomous Strategy: 100K Robotaxis for Europe’s Streets (link).

New Data Shows AVs Starting to Bite Into Human Rideshare (link). Our latest blog post on Gridwise’s 2026 Autonomous Vehicle Impact Report. It’s already getting some love on Reddit too (link).

AV Fleet Management with Ming Maa - Moove AV CEO (link). In this episode, I sat down with the CEO of Waymo’s top fleet partner to discuss one of the less visible but critical parts of scaling autonomy: fleet operations. We talked about why Waymo partnered with Moove AV, how AV fleet management differs from traditional rideshare fleets, how companies decide where to locate depots, maintenance, and charging infrastructure, and why fleet operations could ultimately become one of the biggest competitive moats in the autonomous vehicle industry.

AV Events

‘Don’t miss Nuro co-founder & co-CEO Dave Ferguson’s talk on the “Technical Foundations for a Universal Autonomy Platform” at Nvidia GTC 2026 next week! Tuesday, 3/17 at 3 pm’ (link).

AVs/Humans behaving badly

‘I don’t think the people in that Waymo will ever ride it again’ (link).

‘First Al robot car: waiting for the light; Second Al robot car: bro the light is broken…’ (link).

‘Austin Waymo malfunction’ (link).

‘Angry AV just drives through accident scene while blasting upbeat music’ (link).

VIDEO: Waymo vehicle stops in between train tracks, stop arm (link).

‘Tesla FSD drives through railroad crossing gate’ (link).

Waymos in unison (link).

‘Delivery robot gets stuck behind homeless person’s tent in LA’ (link).

AVs/Humans behaving “goodly” :)

‘Waymo working masterful in Miami, Florida’ (link).

‘Faceplanted delivery robot politely asks for help’ (link).

Neat Jobs

Commercial Real Estate Transaction Manager at Moove AV (link) via Jesse DaSilva.

Technical Program Manager, Hardware Programs at Waymo (link) via Daniel Ho.

Director, Production at Zoox (link) via Zoox.

Release Manager at Wayve (link) via Ekaterina Zhivutskaya.

Here’s a full list of the jobs we’ve featured (link).

Job Moves

Patrick Ware: Lyft -> Waymo (link).

Chaitanya Vasam: Uber -> Waymo (link).

Reginaldo Almeida: Zoox -> Waymo (link).

Shout-outs

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Until next week :)

-Harry