Electric automaker Rivian and Uber have officially joined forces for an ambitious plan to bring a massive fleet of self-driving electric vehicles to the road.
The partnership, announced on Thursday, aims to deploy at least 10,000 fully autonomous R2 robotaxis across the United States, Canada, and Europe by the end of 2031. The R2 is the company’s latest mid-size SUV that isn’t coming to Canada until next year.
Under the deal, Uber will invest up to $1.25 billion US in Rivian over the next several years, provided the automaker hits specific technical milestones. The first wave of commercial robotaxis is scheduled to hit the streets of San Francisco and Miami in 2028, with plans to scale up to 25 cities shortly after. Uber and its partners also have the option to buy an additional 40,000 autonomous vehicles starting in 2030.
The new fleet will be based on Rivian’s upcoming R2 platform, which features a sensor suite consisting of 11 cameras, five radars, and LiDAR technology. The system is powered by Rivian’s own RAP1 AI chips, which are designed to handle the massive amount of data required for unsupervised driving.
“We couldn’t be more excited about this partnership with Uber — it will help accelerate our path to level 4 autonomy to create one of the safest and most convenient autonomous platforms in the world,” said RJ Scaringe, Founder and CEO of Rivian, in a statement.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi noted that Rivian’s ability to control its own software and manufacturing was a deciding factor for the investment. “We’re big believers in Rivian’s approach—designing the vehicle, compute platform, and software stack together, while maintaining end-to-end control of scaled manufacturing and supply in the U.S.,” Khosrowshahi said.
While the R2 consumer vehicle is slated for a late 2026 launch in the U.S., these specialized robotaxis will be available exclusively through the Uber app.
Rivian will have to content with robotaxi networks like Waymo and also Tesla’s upcoming Cybercab, which is slated for mass production starting next month (driverless Tesla robotaxi rides are already happening). A lot can happen when it comes to self-driving tech in five years.
Now, these robotaxis will not launch in Canada for at least another five years. Right now, Rivian’s Universal Hands Free costs $70 CAD per month to use. Here’s a video of the system being tested by Vancouver resident Devin Olsen. From the video it’s clear Rivian a lot of work to do in order to make self-driving robotaxis:
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