Uber & WeRide Expanding Robotaxi Partnership to 15 More Cities

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Uber and WeRide launched commercial robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi 5 months ago. Apparently, that partnership is going well, as the companies have now indicated that they plan to expand such service to 15 more cities in the next 5 years.

Uber is clearly eyeing a robotaxi future. It is investing $100 million more into WeRide to make this plan happen — and that’s just by the end of 2025. This also comes in the same week that the company’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, emphasized that Waymo robotaxis are outperforming Uber’s human-driven vehicles in Austin, Texas.

WeRide is a China-based autonomous driving company, but it did gain the right to test robotaxis on California roads last year. Uber and WeRide have not mentioned entering the US in this latest news, but some of those 15 cities will be in Europe.

Uber’s partnership with Waymo is expanding into Atlanta soon. It would be interesting if WeRide did enter US markets where it was competing with Waymo. I’m not sure how Uber would handle that. Maybe it would just use all the robotaxis it could get. However, I am inclined to think that WeRide will try to lock down certain cities, Waymo will tackle others, and it’s a long ways off until they will be competing in one city — and potentially both partnering with Uber.

Perhaps it seemed at one time that a “robotaxi revolution” could happen rapidly, but this gradual rollout of robotaxis in major cities around the world is certainly the more sensible, practical avenue. Robotaxis just keep creeping in quietly and scaling up step by step. We’ll see which steps are taken next.