Driver-Out with Avride, Nuro’s Uber Lucid Deal, Waymo’s Austin Depot

This week on Autonomy Markets, Grayson Brulte and Walter Piecyk discuss their driver-out ride with Avride, Nuro’s impressive deal with Lucid and Uber, and Waymo’s Austin depot operated by AVOMO.

While in Austin last week, Grayson and Walt met with AVride, experienced a fully autonomous ride in their Hyundai IONIQ 5, and spent time with the company’s management team. AVride’s engineering and OEM partnership strategy stood out as key strengths and later this year, the company will launch commercial service on the Uber network in Dallas.

Scaling robotaxi services requires real-world logistics, and companies such as AVOMO are leaning into the opportunity by building businesses to manage fleets of robotaxis. In Austin, AVOMO is managing a Costco-sized depot with 36 charging ports and on-site maintenance for Uber’s Austin Waymo fleet.

Another day, another autonomy deal for Uber. This week, Nuro announced a six-year deal with Lucid Motors and Uber to bring fully integrated autonomous Lucid Gravity vehicles powered by the Nuro driver to the Uber platform starting next year. As part of the deal, Uber is going to own the asset as they are entering the asset-ownership game, as we correctly called on Autonomy Markets.

Episode Chapters

• 0:00 Avomo, Waymo, Uber Austin Depot
• 7:51 Depot Real Estate
• 10:16 Vehicle Ownership
• 13:13 Waymo / Uber Relationship
• 15:13 Avride
• 23:30 Nuro, Lucid, Uber Deal
• 32:42 Uber’s Autonomous Vehicle Asset + Logistics Strategy
• 36:32 Tesla Robotaxi‘s Expanded Austin Service Area
• 40:41 Next Week