Uber has committed up to $1.25 billion to Rivian Automotive, with an initial $300 million investment, to build and deploy 50,000 autonomous R2 SUVs as robotaxis.
The first phase will see Uber purchase 10,000 fully autonomous R2 vehicles, with an option to acquire an additional 40,000 units beginning in 2030. The vehicles are slated to enter service in San Francisco and Miami in 2028, expanding to 25 cities by 2031.
Rivian’s R2 is a mid‑size SUV that has not yet begun production for the general market; deliveries for the consumer version are expected to start in spring 2026. The robotaxi version shares the same hardware DNA as the consumer R2 and will be powered by Rivian’s RAP1 inference chip and multi‑modal perception platform.
The investment tranches are tied to Rivian meeting specific autonomous‑driving milestones, providing a capital runway that aligns with the company’s technology roadmap while giving Uber a large, committed customer for its robotaxi ambitions. The deal also gives Uber a vertically integrated vehicle and software solution, complementing its existing partnerships with Waymo, Zoox, NVIDIA, Lucid, Nuro, and Waabi.
The partnership is a significant boost to Rivian’s financial position, addressing the company’s need for capital to scale production and achieve profitability, while giving Uber a reliable fleet of autonomous vehicles to accelerate its robotaxi network. Investors reacted positively to the announcement, reflecting confidence in the partnership’s potential to strengthen both companies’ competitive positions.
"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.", said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. "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." "We couldn't be more excited about this partnership with Uber — it will help accelerate our path to level 4 autonomy to create one of the safest and most convenient autonomous platforms in the world. The scale of Rivian's growing data flywheel coupled with RAP1, 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.", said Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe.
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