The Saudis Are Quietly Piecing Together a Robotaxi Threat Tesla Can’t Afford to Ignore

If you thought the robotaxi race was already packed (with Elon teasing demos, Waymo quietly logging millions of miles, and Uber testing rides with whoever shows up wearing a name badge) you’re not wrong. But now there’s a new player that could tilt the whole field.

This morning, Lucid Motors announced a high-stakes, three-way partnership with Uber and autonomous driving startup Nuro. Their evil plan is to launch a fleet of premium, fully autonomous EVs… starting in a major U.S. city as early as next year. And yeah, we’ve heard promises like this before (usually followed by two years of silence and a pivot to delivery robots). But this time, there’s real money on the table and an influential player across the globe pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Uber is investing $300 million into Lucid and committing a separate “multi-hundred-million-dollar” bag to Nuro. In return, Lucid will supply 20,000+ Gravity SUVs, fitted with Nuro’s Level 4 autonomous software, to Uber over the next six years. Of course, these won’t be sold to consumers… they’ll be operated by Uber or its fleet partners like Alto or Avomo (aka the Uber drivers you can’t awkwardly talk to because there is no driver).

(Source: CNBC)

What makes this whole thing tough to buy at first glance is the sheer scale of the ramp-up… especially for Lucid, a company that’s always been long on luxury tech but painfully short on actual production. For instance, Back in 2022, they promised 20,000 vehicles and managed to squeak out just over 7,000 (close, if you round up aggressively and ignore the lawsuits). For a company still trying to prove it can mass-produce something other than investor slide decks, a locked-in pipeline of 20,000 orders is exactly the lifeline they needed.

But don’t ignore who’s really calling the shots here: Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The PIF owns $5.3 billion worth of Uber and is the majority owner of Lucid, so this isn’t just some opportunistic deal… it’s vertical integration, Gulf edition. They’ve got the platform (Uber), the vehicle (Lucid), and the software (Nuro), all under the same umbrella… and oh yeah, they’re sitting on over $1 trillion in assets, so they’ve got more money than basically anyone. It’s less of a “partnership” and more of a family business… now with AI and unlimited funding.

(Source: FII)

The timing also matters. Uber already has robotaxi programs live with Waymo in places like Austin and Atlanta. Meanwhile, Tesla’s long-promised robotaxi program just started testing in Austin… kind of. (Let’s just say the only thing moving faster than their fleet is Elon’s timeline for “next quarter.”) With no permits filed elsewhere yet, Uber’s clearly not betting the farm on Musk. Instead, they’re hedging… investing in multiple players, spreading risk, and positioning themselves as the app layer on top of whatever driverless vehicle ends up working. It’s like Uber looked at the robotaxi arms race and said, “Cool story, we’ll just own the finish line.” Which you have to admit, is a genius strategy.

But for Lucid, this isn’t a hedge… it’s a huge gamble (and one they don’t want to blow if they ever want to be taken seriously in the EV world). Their Gravity SUV hasn’t hit the streets yet, and jumping straight into 24/7 commercial use is a big leap. Luxury EVs are great, but robotaxis don’t get a break when the AC knob squeaks or a sensor needs recalibration. This space demands reliability, low maintenance, and scalable logistics… three areas Lucid hasn’t exactly mastered (yet). If they pull it off, it could open the door to a new revenue stream and prove they’re more than a niche luxury player (with the coolest looking EV trucks I’ve ever seen).

And we haven’t even talked about Nuro yet. You might remember them as the folks behind those tiny, toaster-shaped delivery bots that awkwardly rolled around college campuses and sidewalks. Well, they’ve grown up. Now they’re bringing their self-driving tech to full-sized vehicles—with a legit Level 4 system that’s already in testing at their proving grounds in Vegas. And, unlike certain competitors (ahem, Cruise), they haven’t managed to set off any regulatory bombs… at least not yet.

Usually when I see headlines like this, I laugh, roll my eyes, and assume it's another overhyped robotaxi fantasy that’ll quietly disappear once someone asks about permits or profit margins. But this one actually feels different. It’s not your average press release meant to juice a stock price for 24 hours… it’s a serious, Saudi-backed, billion-dollar push to turn Uber into the central nervous system of the autonomous future.

And for Lucid, this could be the break they’ve been praying for. They’ve spent years overpromising and underdelivering… more concept than car company. But now they’ve got real demand, deep-pocketed backing, and a shot at relevance outside of EV nerd circles.

Of course, as my high school basketball coach used to say… it still comes down to execution. Can Lucid actually scale beyond boutique production? Can Nuro’s software handle the chaos of real-world streets, if even Tesla still has a human in the driver seat hovering over a killswitch? That’s a tall order. But for once, the funding is real, the partners are serious, and the incentives are actually aligned. So yeah, I’m skeptical… but this time, I’m paying attention.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Google, Uber, and Tesla as mentioned in the article.