Uber is taking its premium robotaxi service to a second U.S. city. According to TechCrunch, the company plans to launch the self-driving service in Houston by mid-2027, expanding beyond its current home market of San Francisco.
The service relies on a three-way partnership. Uber is working with Lucid, the electric-vehicle maker, and Nuro, an autonomous-vehicle startup. As TechCrunch reports, the Houston fleet will consist of Lucid EVs outfitted with a self-driving system supplied by Nuro.
Techmeme, citing reporting by Kirsten Korosec of TechCrunch, frames the move as Uber expanding its premium robotaxi offering from San Francisco to Houston, making Houston the second U.S. market under the program.
The arrangement is notable because it splits the robotaxi business into specialized roles: Uber brings the ride-hailing platform and customer base, Lucid supplies the vehicles, and Nuro provides the autonomous-driving technology. Rather than building an entire self-driving stack in-house, Uber is assembling partners for each piece.
The mid-2027 timeline also signals that this is a planned rollout, not an immediate launch. The sources describe the Houston service as a forthcoming expansion rather than a service available today.
Why it matters: the expansion shows that driverless ride-hailing is moving past a single test city toward a multi-market business, and that major players increasingly see partnerships—rather than going it alone—as the path to scaling self-driving cars.