Uber, the company that built a $170B+ empire by convincing other people to use their own cars, is now buying its own. Over $10 billion worth of them, to be specific.
The ride-hailing giant is making its largest capital commitment ever to autonomous vehicles, splitting roughly $7.5 billion toward fleet purchases and over $2.5 billion into equity stakes in AV developers and manufacturers. The goal: launch robotaxi services in at least 15 cities by the end of 2026 and scale to 28 cities by 2028.
The end of asset-light Uber
Uber’s answer is a hybrid model. Rather than going all-in on removing humans from the equation, the company is betting that a mixed fleet of autonomous and human-driven vehicles is more scalable and reliable than a pure robotaxi approach. In practice, that means riders might get a self-driving car on one trip and a human driver on the next, depending on availability, route complexity, and city.
Building the infrastructure
