Uber’s Autonomous Vehicle Empire: The Full List of Robotaxi, Delivery and AV Technology Partners

Picture opening the Uber app in Atlanta and hailing a ride — only for a Waymo robotaxi to pull up, no driver in sight. That’s already happening. And it’s just one small corner of what Uber has quietly built into something that looks less like a ride-hailing company and more like the central nervous system of the entire autonomous vehicle industry.

Over roughly the past two years, Uber has signed deals with more than 30 autonomous vehicle companies. Robotaxis, sidewalk delivery robots, autonomous lorries, aerial drones — the company has placed bets across all of it. Not by building the technology in-house, but by becoming the platform everything runs on.

From Builder to Platform: How Uber Changed Its Strategy

Uber once had its own self-driving programme. It was ambitious, expensive, and ultimately sold off. The company divested its Advanced Technologies Group and made a decision that now looks rather shrewd: stop competing with AV developers, and start hosting them.

The result is “Uber Autonomous Solutions” and the internal engineering group “Uber AV Labs”, which provide partners with tools, data, infrastructure, and an operating platform. Think of it as an app store for self-driving vehicles. Uber brings the users, the routing, the payments, and the brand. Partners bring the robots.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s chief executive, has described the approach plainly, saying the company wants to be “the go-to platform for autonomous vehicles” — not the manufacturer, not the engineer, but the marketplace.

The Robotaxi Partners: A Who’s Who of the AV World

The list of robotaxi partners reads like a directory of the self-driving industry’s biggest names.

Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous driving arm, is perhaps the most visible. Shared robotaxi services are already live in Phoenix, Atlanta and Austin, with Waymo vehicles bookable directly through the Uber app. Motional, the Hyundai–Aptiv joint venture, has deployed Hyundai Ioniq 5 robotaxis on Uber in US markets. May Mobility has a multi-year deal to put Toyota Sienna-based autonomous vehicles on Uber’s platform, starting in Arlington, Texas, by late 2025.

Zoox, owned by Amazon, is targeting Las Vegas and Los Angeles around mid-2027 with its purpose-built robotaxis. WeRide, Pony.ai, Momenta, and Avride — a spin-out from Yandex, now operating under Nebius Group — cover international markets including the Middle East and Europe. And Wayve, the UK-based automated driving startup that has conducted trials in London, is among the technology partners feeding into Uber’s broader AV ambitions.

The Hardware Deals: Cars, Chips and Cash

Beyond software partnerships, Uber has gone deep on vehicle supply. The numbers are striking.

Uber has committed around £235 million (the deal was announced as $300 million) to Lucid Group, with a six-year agreement targeting more than 20,000 autonomous Lucid vehicles on its network, using AV technology provided by Nuro. Separately, a collaboration with NVIDIA will see at least 5,000 NVIDIA Drive-powered Stellantis vehicles deployed as Level 4 robotaxis — meaning fully autonomous, no human needed — under a deal disclosed in an official Uber investor press release.

Manufacturing partners also include Rivian, Volkswagen — whose ID. Buzz van is being configured for AV use — Mercedes-Benz, and Foxconn. The strategy is clear: Uber doesn’t want to own the cars. But it wants a say in how they’re built.

Delivery Robots and Drones: The Last-Mile Push

It’s not just passengers. Uber Eats is becoming a testing ground for autonomous delivery at street level.

Sidewalk robots from Cartken, Starship Technologies, and Serve Robotics are already being integrated into Uber’s delivery services. Avride supplies both autonomous vehicles for rides and delivery robots for Uber Eats. And in 2025, Uber announced a drone delivery partnership with Flytrex for aerial delivery pilots — adding a third dimension, quite literally, to its logistics ambitions.

Short punchy paragraph, because it deserves one: Uber is building the infrastructure for a world where almost nothing that moves needs a human to drive it.

The Critics: Jobs, Safety and Surveillance

Not everyone is cheering. Labour unions and driver associations have raised concerns that Uber’s AV push is ultimately about cutting labour costs and reducing what the platform pays its workers. Private hire drivers and delivery couriers on the Uber platform are watching developments closely, with many worried about long-term job security and whether any retraining or transitional support will be on offer.

Safety advocates point to incidents involving self-driving vehicles and argue that Level 4 autonomy is not yet ready for the messy reality of mixed urban traffic. Privacy campaigners have also raised questions about the sheer volume of video, sensor and location data that large-scale AV deployments collect — and what happens to it.

City planners are divided too. Some see Uber’s AV network as a way to improve transport access and reduce congestion. Others worry about delivery robots clogging pavements and the knock-on effects on public transport ridership if robotaxis start drawing passengers away from buses and trains.

Regulators, for their part, have moved cautiously. In the US, some states and cities have permitted commercial robotaxi services under defined safety reporting requirements. In the UK, the Department for Transport oversees autonomous vehicle trials with an emphasis on road safety, data protection and liability — and widespread commercial robotaxi deployment has not yet received national approval.

What This Means for Kent Residents

No autonomous Uber service has been announced for Kent, and any AV deployment on Kent roads would require formal public announcements, local authority engagement, and regulatory clearance before it could go ahead. However, UK-based Wayve’s involvement as an Uber technology partner is worth watching, given the company has conducted autonomous driving trials in British urban environments. For Kent residents who use Uber for rides or Eats today, services remain human-driven — but the pace at which Uber is building its AV platform suggests that the question of when self-driving vehicles reach South East England is becoming less a matter of if, and more a matter of how soon.