Under a new partnership, Uber will invest in Rivian and deploy the company's vehicles as robotaxis on Uber's ridesharing platform.

The investment will range between $300 million and $1.25 billion, with a maximum of up to 50,000 robotaxis deployed across 25 cities by 2031.

Rivian is getting into the robotaxi race.

Rivian (RIVN) shares surged as much as 10% earlier Thursday and were up 3% recently, after the EV maker announced a new partnership with Uber Technologies (UBER). Under the deal, Uber will invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian, and buy at least 10,000 self-driving R2 vehicles for use in its ridesharing giant's network starting in 2028.

Rivian and Uber plan to start deploying the R2 robotaxis in San Francisco and Miami in 2028, and Uber will have the option to buy up to 40,000 more R2s as the companies look to expand to as many as 25 cities by 2031. Uber has approved an initial investment of $300 million, with various "autonomous performance milestones" that could increase the investment to as much as $1.25 billion.

Thursday's stock price gain suggests that investors are bullish on Rivian's ambition to go beyond just making electric vehicles and to also make money from self-driving software and robotaxis.

Rivian laid out its vision for how its autonomous driving software could evolve and generate revenue at an "Autonomy & AI" day in December. Last week, the EV maker unveiled a number of details about the R2 SUV, including its price and release dates, which Rivian expects will drive sales growth as it looks to become consistently profitable.

Rivian's expansion into robotaxis steps up the company's direct competition with Tesla (TSLA), which is operating a small fleet of robotaxis it is looking to expand beyond Austin, Texas.

It also places Rivian into a crowded space of autonomous vehicle and software developers including Nvidia (NVDA), several of which have already partnered with Uber as they grow their operations across a number of cities and countries. Analysts have previously said the robotaxi market could be worth more than $1 trillion by 2040, and benefit dozens of companies.

Even with today's gain, Rivian shares have lost about one-fifth of their value since the start of the year. Uber shares were down 1.5% in recent trading and have declined nearly 7% so far in 2026.

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