After announcing their robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi last year, Uber and Veride are finally deploying fully autonomous vehicles in the city, Uber announced. If you request an UberX or Uber Comfort vehicle in specified parts of the city, you’ll now get the option of a driverless WeRide vehicle.
Uber first launched its service with Chinese robotaxi operator Veride in 2024, but initially only with safety drivers. Now, fully driverless service will be offered in a 12-square-mile tourist area called Yas Island, with plans to expand to other parts of the city down the road.
Anyone in the Yas Island area can select the “Autonomous” option in the Uber app, although this does not guarantee a driverless vehicle. The cars in use, shown above, are WeRide’s five-place GXR model (based on Geely’s Farizon supervan) with more than 20 sensors and cameras.
Uber has partnered with several robotaxi operators, including Waymo in Atlanta, Baidu in Asia and the Middle East, and Momenta in Europe. With these, Uber focuses on the consumer ride-matching portion of the service while its partners supply the vehicles. However, for Veride, Uber is handling the fleet operations in collaboration with taxi company Tawasul Transport, which includes maintenance, charging and more. Uber and WeRide intend to launch in an additional 15 cities over the next several years.
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