Dara Khosrowshahi wants to be the landlord of the robotaxi era. Not the builder — the landlord.
Uber's CEO laid out his vision at Abundance360 in March: every licensed autonomous vehicle on the planet should pay Uber a percentage of every fare, the same way millions of human drivers do today. No fleet of Uber-owned cars. No factories. Just the app, the infrastructure, and an open door for anyone who can get a robotaxi on the road.
"We are going to want every terrific licensed robot driver on the platform," Khosrowshahi said, "just like we want every terrific licensed human driver." Benzinga
That pitch now has infrastructure behind it. On Feb. 23, Uber launched Uber Autonomous Solutions, a formal business unit that provides AV makers with insurance, vehicle maintenance, fleet charging, and operational support. Sarfraz Maredia, previously Uber's head of autonomous mobility and delivery, runs the unit. Uber is also investing more than $100 million in AV charging infrastructure across the U.S. and Europe. Observer
The strategy is straightforward: make it cheaper and easier to run a robotaxi fleet on Uber than to build a competing ride-hail app from scratch. Uber already has the riders, the insurance product, the maintenance network, and now the charging infrastructure. The AV maker drives the car. Uber drives the economics. More than 20 AV partnerships back this up, including deals with Alphabet's Waymo, China's WeRide, Amazon-backed Rivian, Avride (Yandex's autonomous vehicle spinout), and Zoox (Amazon's robotaxi subsidiary). Moonshots with Peter Diamandis
Each deal is different. Uber owns roughly 5.82 percent of WeRide's Class A shares, per a filing disclosed this week. TechMoran WeRide and Uber launched Europe's first commercial robotaxi in Zagreb in late March through Verne, a joint venture between Pony.ai and Uber backed by Mobileye and a European automaker. Uber Investor Relations In Dubai, the service went fully driverless on April 1, covering two residential districts with a fleet that has grown to more than 200 vehicles across the Middle East, scaling toward 1,200 by year-end. TechMoran
The Rivian deal commits Uber to invest up to $1.25 billion through 2031 — $300 million upfront — for the right to deploy up to 10,000 Rivian R2 robotaxis, starting in San Francisco and Miami in 2028 and expanding to 25 cities by 2031. Uber also holds an option to buy up to 40,000 more R2s from 2030 onward. Reuters Nvidia is adding another layer: a robotaxi rollout using Nvidia's DRIVE Hyperion platform and Alpamayo, a reasoning-based AI model for autonomous driving, starting in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2027 and expanding to 28 cities by 2028. Reuters Zoox deploys on Uber in Las Vegas this summer and Los Angeles in 2027. Uber Investor Relations Avride, backed by $375 million from Uber and Nebius, runs with safety operators in Dallas and targets full driverless operation in 2026. Automotive World Pony.ai's Gen-7 platform has reached unit economics breakeven in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, meaning each vehicle generates enough revenue to cover its own costs — a milestone few AV makers have cleared anywhere. Uber Investor Relations
Khosrowshahi has set a target: more robotaxi rides facilitated than anyone else in the world by 2029. Benzinga For that to work, Uber needs the AV market to produce many winners, not one.
The risk is real. Waymo already logs more than 400,000 paid driverless rides per week across multiple U.S. cities and runs its own app. If Waymo decides it doesn't need Uber, the aggregator story weakens. If Tesla deploys at scale and Elon Musk keeps the customer relationship rather than routing it through a partner, it weakens further. Motional CEO Laura Major put the structural risk plainly: "If there is one winner, that is going to be a problem for them. I think it creates a huge risk if that robotaxi partner starts their own ride-hail service." Business Insider
Waymo currently operates about 2,500 robotaxis. Tesla has roughly 45 Model Y robotaxis deployed in Austin with human safety monitors aboard, according to Robotaxi Tracker — a sliver of what Musk has promised and a reminder that the gap between his timelines and operational reality stays wide. Business Insider
The market opportunity is not in dispute. Robotaxis are expected to capture up to 85 percent of traditional ride-hailing trips in large markets by 2030, according to a BCG estimate cited by Observer. Observer The question is who captures those rides and on whose terms.
Khosrowshahi is betting the next three years that Tesla stays at 45 cars, Waymo stays on the platform, and a dozen other bets pay off simultaneously. None of those things are guaranteed.
† Clarify the structure of the $375M commitment, or add attribution: 'Avride, in a partnership involving $375 million in strategic investments and commercial commitments with Uber, runs with safety operators in Dallas...'
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