American self-driving startup Nuro, which is backed by companies like NVIDIA, Toyota and Uber, has started testing its autonomous vehicles on the challenging roads of Tokyo. bloomberg Informed. The company, which plans to launch a robotaxi service with Uber and Lucid in San Francisco this year, will test “a handful” of the vehicles in the city. As required by Japanese law, human safety drivers will drive.
Tokyo presents a challenge for autonomous vehicles, given its narrow, crowded streets and driving on the left side of the road. CEO Andrew Chapin said, “Testing the capability of the autonomy system in such an interesting market with some international complexities is a really good stress test of what the system is capable of.” The company’s ultimate goal is to achieve Level 4 autonomy, which allows full self-driving in limited circumstances.
Waymo is the second major robotaxi operator to test vehicles in Tokyo in collaboration with Japanese taxi operator Nihon Kotsu and the country’s leading taxi app, Go. It is operational in the country from April 2025 in collaboration with Toyota.
Nuro has not yet announced which operators or vehicle manufacturers it will partner with, but Chapin said it may not limit itself to autonomous rides. “A universal autonomy platform that can be scaled to many different applications and form factors is a bit different from the approach Waymo is taking,” he explained. bloomberg. The company previously teamed up with 7-Eleven on autonomous delivery in Mountain View, California.
Uber plans to have 100,000 autonomous vehicles, including 20,000 robotaxis operated by Lucid and Nuro, with the rollout starting in 2027. It recently unveiled its new vehicle design at CES 2026. Uber is also collaborating with Nissan and Wave with the aim of introducing pilot cars in Tokyo by the end of 2026.
<a href