Uber in Talks With Financial Institutions to Raise Funds for Autonomous Taxi Expansion

According to a report by Reuters, on August 6, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi stated that the company is in talks with private equity firms and banks to raise funds for the development of its autonomous taxi business. This move demonstrates Uber's confidence in the large-scale promotion of this emerging and highly-watched technology.

Image source: Uber

Uber has now launched Waymo's autonomous taxi service and is gradually expanding its influence in the autonomous taxi industry through partnerships with automakers such as Volkswagen Group and Lucid.

Dara Khosrowshahi outlined Uber’s overall strategy, which includes three autonomous taxi business models: paying a fixed rate to partners who own vehicles, sharing revenue with fleet operators, and owning vehicles while licensing autonomous driving technology software.

Dara Khosrowshahi said, "We are in talks with private equity firms and have also engaged with banks. Once we validate the revenue model of autonomous taxis, that is, prove how much revenue these vehicles can generate daily, financing will no longer be an issue."

Currently, Uber plans to allocate a moderate portion of its approximately $7 billion annual cash flow to the deployment of its autonomous taxi business. The company also stated that it may support business expansion by selling minority stakes in its subsidiaries.

Analysts pointed out that large-scale deployment of self-driving taxis is expected to reduce Uber's reliance on drivers, thereby reducing operating costs and increasing profitability.

Uber has launched Waymo self-driving taxi services in its ride-hailing app in Austin, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia. In April this year, Uber reached an agreement with the Volkswagen Group to deploy thousands of self-driving electric vans in the United States over the next decade.

In July this year, Uber announced a partnership with American electric vehicle manufacturer Lucid and autonomous driving technology startup Nuro to jointly launch a fleet of self-driving taxis. At the time, Uber stated that the company or its third-party partners would purchase and operate Lucid Gravity vehicles equipped with Nuro Driver technology and integrate these vehicles into its global mobility network. The initial deployment of such vehicles is planned for late 2026 in the United States, with a goal of deploying at least 20,000 Lucid Gravity self-driving taxis within six years. Additionally, Uber announced an investment of several hundred million dollars in Lucid and Nuro, respectively. Lucid stated it would receive $300 million.

Despite facing strict regulatory scrutiny, widespread skepticism about its application, and high costs causing many companies to exit the autonomous taxi market, Tesla and Waymo are still actively advancing the expansion of autonomous taxi services. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has stated that the autonomous taxi business could be worth trillions of dollars.

Waymo has launched operations in five cities across the United States, including San Francisco. In June of this year, Tesla introduced a pilot program for autonomous taxis in Austin for a limited group of people, and in July, it started a chauffeur service operated by human drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area for specific groups.

Uber stated that since Tesla launched services in these cities, no significant change in demand trends has been observed in Austin or San Francisco.

Ken Mahoney, CEO of Mahoney Asset Management, pointed out: "For many companies, this seems to be a worthwhile endeavor, as there are optimistic forecasts regarding the total addressable market of the autonomous taxi industry."