Hertz will provide 'day-to-day vehicle asset management, including charging, maintenance, repairs, cleaning, and depot staffing' for the luxury robotaxi service. This service is expected to launch by the end of 2026 in the San Francisco Bay Area, utilizing Lucid's Gravity SUVs and Nuro's self-driving technology.
In July, Lucid, Uber, and Nuro announced a massive robotaxi deal that would see the deployment of 20,000 autonomous vehicles in the US over the next six years. But every journey begins with a single step, and today Lucid announced the delivery of the first Gravity SUV to Nuro for retrofitting. The vehicle was built at Lucid's factory in Casa Grande, Arizona, and then transported to the automaker's headquarters in Newark, California. There, a team from Nuro installed the sensors and other hardware for autonomous driving.
The Silicon Valley startup announced Thursday that several investors, including existing backer Baillie Gifford, added another $97 million to its Series E round. New investors include Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Nvidia, and Pledge Ventures. Uber, which last month said it would make a "multi-hundred-million dollar" investment in Nuro as part of a broader deal with the electric car maker Lucid, also participated.
