저자: ParkevTatevosian,CFA · 외국인
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Uber·Lucid·Nuro 로보택시 파트너십 발표: 2026년 말 미국 주요 도시 출시 예정, 6년간 Lucid 차량 20,000대 이상 배치, Uber가 투자 및 차량 소유·운영. 발표자는 Uber 자산경량 모델 변화에 우려를 표하면서도 자율주행 리스크 감소로 긍정 평가. Tesla의 로보택시 비용·성과 예측은 과장 경향이 있어 상향 조정 필요하다고 주장. Lucid는 재무적으로 열악해 Uber에 유리한 조건일 것으로 봄.
다듬은 글
We got some massive news for Lucid stock investors, Uber stock investors, and even Tesla stock investors as Uber, Lucid, and Neuro partnered to develop a robo taxi service, which is expected to launch late next year. I wanted to talk about the details of that deal and what it could mean for Uber, Lucid, and Tesla stock investors and talk about the implications of these developments.
Of course, this comes as Tesla is ramping up the testing of its robo taxis in Texas. Those tests are not going very very well. They're going okay. I guess it's neutral. Uh the company is planning to expand the testing. It's applying for expanding testing. And then Alphabet's Whimo with its driverless cars are expanding service capabilities, reaching more cities, adding to their number of rides they're offering each week.
So driverless car technology is becoming more and more of a reality for the broader market. And let's take a look at what that could mean for investors of these compani, let's look at the details of the announcement. Uh they're partnering together to launch the robo taxi service, which is expected to first launch later next year in a major US city.
Uber aims to deploy 20,000 or more Lucid vehicles equipped with the neuro driver over 6 years. The vehicles will be owned and operated by Uber or its third-party fleet partners and made available to riders exclusively via the Uber platform. As part of this deal, Uber plans to make multiund million investments in both Nuro and Lucid.
And Nuro and Lucid could desperately use this money. Uber has money to spend. Uber's operations generate billions of dollars in free cash flow and the business. Prior to this deal, and I'm going to talk about this, Uber didn't deploy a lot of the capital back into the business. This is the first of its kind deal for Uber where it's going to own and operate the vehicles on the platform.
Now, those of you that have been following my channel know that I have Uber stock and I rated Uber stock as the best stock to buy in 2025. And I made that uh recommendation on January 1st. So, Uber has performed really really well yearto date. And one of the reasons why I've liked Uber stock so much is because of the asset light business model.
Uber doesn't own any of the cars on the platform. The drivers are the ones bringing the assets to the platform and Uber gets to utilize those assets and generate revenue from those assets without actually investing in those assets. So that generates a good return of assets, a return on investor capital because Uber doesn't invest all that much capital.
Now, with this move, it's a bit of a strategy shift from Uber, and I'm a little bit concerned about that. Uh Uber now is planning to own and operate these vehicles. So, that means Uber will be putting out a lot more capital to operate this fleet. I'm curious to hear the reasoning behind this. We didn't get a lot of that information here in this press release, but the next time Uber reports its quarterly financial results, I'm hoping that the CEO talks about this big change in Uber's strategy from being, you know, hands off with the assets being asset light to now uh deploying these cars on the road where Uber will own and operate them.
Now, they do mention that they might be operated by its third-party fleet partners, and I hope that's the default. I hope Uber tries to get the third-party fleet partners to own all of them. And I think the reason they're saying that they'll either be owned and operated by Uber or the third party fleet partners is to give Uber some negotiating leverage against those third parties and say to them, look, you know, we would love to have you own and operate these on our behalf, but if you're not willing to agree to terms that are attractive to us, then we'll just go ahead and own these vehicles ourselves.
It's no big deal for us. We generate billions of dollars in free cash flow. Buying 20,000 vehicles is no big deal for us, right? Um, so the 20,000 vehicles and owning them is not a big deal. It's not going to increase the asset risk for Uber. It can still be thought of as an asset light business model.
But what would be concerning is if now this is the direction they're going towards where most of their moves become moves that are increasing the assets they're deploying on the business. Okay. The next thing I wanted to talk about is the broader implications here. Of course, one of the bigger risks with Uber is driverless car technology, right?
And when I made my recommendation to begin the year, I said, you know, those risks were overstated and investors were being a little too optimistic about what Tesla's going to achieve in driverless car technology. Investors were listening too much to what Tesla was telling them and not taking into consideration how much Tesla overpromises and underdelivers.
And so just listening to Tesla, you would think that Uber is going to be out of business in two years time. So Uber's valuation became incredibly cheap. And I thought it was a great bargain to begin 2025. So this move further decreases that driverless car technology risk for Uber because they will be deploying driverless cars themselves and partnering with a company that already has the level four autonomy system means that they can start testing gaining approvals and deploying this technology and the question marks surrounding cost I think have been overblown as Well, of course, again, Tesla didn't have little to do with that, right?
They're promising that they'll be making these robo taxis at $25,000 each and they'll be offered to they'll be able to offer rides at very low cost, right? But again, I point you to the history of Tesla making these promises and making these forecasts and the actual delivery of these promises and these forecast, right?
I think Tesla delivers just a rough estimate, like one out of the 15 things that they say they're going to deliver. So, if you truly believe that Tesla's going to create a $25,000 robo taxi and offer rides at the price that they're offering those rides for, I think you're being a little too optimistic and failing to consider Tesla's previous forecasts and the amount that they've missed on those forecast versus how many forecast they've actually hit.
Okay. So when you, you know, adjust upwards the cost of Tesla's robo taxi the future if they actually end up making it, the costs are going to be a lot higher than what Tesla is forecasting. I would estimate, you know, 50 to 75% higher than what Tesla is forecasting. So if they're telling you they're going to make a model for $25,000, it's probably going to be closer to $35,000.
And then the price per ride. If they're telling you it's going to be 20 cents per mile, it's probably going to be closer to 30 or 35 cents per mile. All right, just adjust upwards all of the numbers that Tesla forecasts because they're just in the habit of overpromising and underdelivering. And I have to take that into account if I want to be a prudent investor.
I have to take into account that that company hits like one out of 15 forecasts. Okay. Then when you combine that with the fact that uh Tesla will need to spend considerable sums of money on marketing for customer acquisition, um Uber already has those customers, right? Nearly 200 million monthly active platform customers on the Uber platform.
So Tesla may be able to, and I say may because we don't know if they're actually going to be able to produce these robo taxis at a lower cost. They might be able to produce those lowerc cost robo taxis. So they might have a cost advantage in terms of manufacturing and purchasing the vehicles, the cost of the vehicles, but they're going to be at a disadvantage in customer acquisition cost.
Uber already has that advantage. They already have 175 or two close to 200 million monthly active platform customers and increasing by the time Tesla rolls out its robo taxi. Uber is likely to have over 200 million monthly active customers. So that will offset the cost of the manufacturing, right? And by partnering with Lucid, and I'm sure Uber is getting the better end of this deal.
Well, I shouldn't say I'm sure, but I'm relatively confident that Uber is getting the better end of this deal because Lucid is a desperate company. This company has already lost $13.3 billion in the course of doing business up till this point. And in the most recent quarter, they lost another $692 million from their operations.
And these losses are not expected to end anytime soon. They keep losing money on the bottom line. They keep having to go back to investors and ask for more and more and more money. and the growth in electric vehicle sales is not coming to fruition. And so Lucid saw this opportunity as a way to generate cash both in terms of investment directly from Uber into its business and a way for it to generate some sales of its electric vehicles that are not selling well to begin with.
Okay. So, it's very likely that Uber got an attractive price on those purchase commitments uh against uh Lucid. So, the cost per vehicle is likely to be relatively better than what you might expect in my opinion. If when these details come out, we'll get more information regarding this. So, overall um a couple of offsetting factors for Uber.
uh on the one hand it becomes more asset intensive by owning and operating these electric vehicles. On the other hand, it reduces the risk from driverless car technology. And overall, I think it's a good move for Uber because that risk from driverless car technology is a huge risk. And so by decreasing that, you make more progress in terms of your business and the valuation your business can earn.
and the trust from your suppliers and partners and everyone involved. So, I like this deal for Uber uh for Lucid. I I also like this deal for for Lucid because they are like I mentioned in a desperate situation. They need to raise capital. They have great technology as demonstrated here with the investment from Uber.
Uh and previously they made that sale to Aston Martin for its technology. So, they have great technology. The problem with Lucid is that consumers are not very attracted to electric vehicles. It's just not a thing that people want very uh very much right now. So, they need to find other ways to sell their products to stay alive until they can produce lowerpriced models and hopefully reach a more sustainable level where they don't have to continue going back to investors and asking for more and more and more money.
For Tesla, it's clearly bad news. It's yet uh more competition. Uh it's yet another company that will be rolling out driverless cars on the roads before they do and getting a head start, launching into cities with operations before they do. And that's just a choice uh because of Tesla going with the camera only approach and not using radar and liar because they believe that's going to be the system that ultimately wins out.
So that remains to be seen if that system ultimately wins out or if that strategy ultimately wins out and if the difference between the cost of customer acquisition which Uber has a huge advantage against Tesla, an absolutely massive advantage against Tesla or if the cost of manufacturing will win out in the driverless car technology race.
Right? That's what Tesla is betting on that their manufacturing capability will be the leading uh cause for success in the driverless car industry. Whereas Uber is relying on its strong customer acquisition uh its strong base of customers and the data it's accumulated to win in this category. .
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