The Rivian R2 will be on display during the 2025 Los Angeles Auto Show at the Los Angeles Convention Center on November 23, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
Josh Lefkowitz Getty Images
Uber Technologies Plans to invest up to $1.25 billion in electric car maker Rivian Automotive The companies announced Thursday as part of a deal to deploy up to 50,000 robotaxis across multiple countries by 2031.
The partnership includes an expectation that Uber or its fleet partners will purchase 10,000 self-driving versions of Rivian’s next R2 electric vehicle, with an option to purchase up to 40,000 more robotaxis starting in 2030, according to a release from the companies.
Rivian stock rose about 8% to 10% in premarket trading Thursday, while Uber stock was relatively flat after the announcement.
The deal is the latest in a resurgence of announcements about self-driving cars and robotaxis as companies seek to take advantage of what investors predict is a multitrillion-dollar market. Many companies, including Uber, have so far missed the mark when it comes to robotaxis.
An initial $300 million investment in Rivian, which is preparing to start selling R2 to consumers from Uber this spring, is expected soon after the deal closes, subject to regulatory approvals, according to the release. The investment represents approximately 19.55 million shares in the company, a Rivian spokesperson confirmed.
The other four investment tranches will be implemented at unspecified dates through 2031, subject to reaching certain milestones, according to a document released by the automaker on Thursday. Uber also plans to pay certain licensing fees related to the use of Rivian’s self-driving system software, according to the filing.
The companies said the R2 robotaxi will be available exclusively through Uber’s ride-hailing and delivery platform in 25 cities in the U.S., Canada and Europe. The first cities will be San Francisco and Miami in 2028.
“We are big believers in Rivian’s approach of designing the vehicle, computing platform and software stack together, while maintaining end-to-end control of manufacturing and supply at scale in the U.S.,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a release. “That vertical integration, combined with data from our growing consumer vehicle base and experience managing the complexity of commercial vehicles, gives us the confidence to set these ambitious but achievable goals.”
The deal is Rivian’s latest capital investment, following a $5.8 billion software deal with German automaker Volkswagen announced in late 2024. It also marks an increase in Uber’s robotaxi plans following recent announcements with EV makers. clear, Amazon’s Zoox, parent company of Chrysler Stellantis and the tech giant Nvidia.
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe recently began talking about the company’s robotaxi ambitions, including at the EV maker’s third-quarter earnings call in November and its first Autonomy and AI Day in December.
Scaringe said Rivian’s next R2 and the technology that supports it will allow the company to pursue robotaxis, which is currently dominated by Alphabet-backed Waymo in the United States.
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe speaks at the company’s first Autonomy and AI Day, which showcases the development of autonomous driving technology, on December 11, 2025 in Palo Alto, California, USA.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
Scaringe and other executives said the emergence of new technologies, including artificial intelligence and more powerful semiconductor chips, will ultimately allow companies to succeed with robotaxis.
“The scale of Rivian’s growing data flywheel, combined with our state-of-the-art in-house inference platform and multimodal recognition platform, RAP1 (Rivian Autonomy Processor), makes us very excited about the rapid advancement of Rivian’s autonomy in the coming years,” Scaringe said in a release Thursday.
—CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
