- Robotaxis are hitting the roads at a dizzying pace, and now Uber is rolling them out in Dallas.
- Uber is partnering with robotaxi startup Avride to launch a fleet of self-driving Hyundais.
- Dallas is the latest city to get robotaxis on Uber, but the Avride vehicles will have safety drivers for now.
Dallas has become the latest city to get robotaxis on Uber.
The ride-hailing giant announced on Wednesday that users can now access self-driving vehicles developed by startup Avride, as the race to introduce robotaxis across the US continues to heat up.
The Dallas robotaxi fleet, which is made up of Hyundai Ioniq 5 EVs powered by Avride’s self-driving tech, will initially include human monitors in the driver’s seat. Uber said that fully driverless operations will be coming “sometime in the future.”
Customers requesting a ride on the Uber app may be matched with a robotaxi, Uber said, but they will have the option to switch to a human-operated vehicle.
The launch comes as robotaxis roll out across the US at an increasingly dizzying pace.
Dallas is the third US city in which Uber has launched autonomous ride-hailing options, with the company also partnering with Waymo in Austin and Atlanta.
After spending years testing self-driving taxis, Waymo is also accelerating its rollout.
The Google-owned company recently announced plans to introduce autonomous ride-hailing services in Dallas, Miami, Houston, San Antonio, and Orlando, adding to its existing operations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta. On Tuesday, Waymo said it had begun operating robotaxis without a driver in Dallas.
After abandoning plans to build its own robotaxis, Uber has adopted a strategy of partnering with autonomous vehicle companies such as Waymo to roll out self-driving vehicles on its app — even as it faces competition from those same startups in markets like San Francisco.
That strategy extends beyond the US. Uber has also partnered with Chinese robotaxi firms Pony.AI and WeRide, with the company launching fully driverless WeRide robotaxis on its app in Abu Dhabi last week.
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