Why Uber is spending big on robotaxi depots and charging infrastructure

The big picture: Uber's bet is that controlling infrastructure in the right locations — the charging and maintenance depots — is central to winning the robotaxi battle.

• It's a strategic shift for the intentionally "asset light" ride-hailing company, which doesn't own any cars or employ Uber drivers.
• After shedding its own in-house self-driving business in 2020 and focusing on its traditional ride hailing network, Uber is now investing in AV companies, developing real estate and committing to buy tens of thousands of vehicles.

By the numbers: It's a plan that could cost as much as $10 billion over the next few years (if its AV partners hit various milestones), according to one tally by the Financial Times.

• The cost of the infrastructure piece isn't fully known, but in February, Uber said it would spend $100 million to develop new fast-charging hubs at AV depots in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Dallas, with more cities to come.

Between the lines: Autonomous vehicles change the balance sheet math. The investments are necessary, Uber execs say, to establish the company as a preferred robotaxi provider.

• "We do think making smart investments in the infrastructure will enable us to bring down cost per mile," Samarth Kejriwal, Uber's global head of autonomous fleet operations," told Axios in an exclusive interview.
• Owning that layer gives the company more influence and leverage, compared to outsourcing it and paying third‑party margins.
• "At the end of the day, if we think 10, 15, 20 years out, consumers will care about price and reliability," he said.

Industry observers are framing it bluntly. "The asset-light model was genius for its era, but autonomy rewrites the economics," Nexar CEO Zach Greenberger told SmartCities Dive.

• "By taking equity stakes in AV developers and locking in fleet supply, Uber is trading margin simplicity for structural control of the next decade of mobility."

Zoom in: Location is everything in real estate — and that applies to robotaxi fleet infrastructure too.

• To identify optimal locations for AV depots and pit stops, Uber developed an in-house tool to leverage what it already knows about its ride-share customers using anonymized trip data.
• It's a kind of heat map showing the most popular pick-up and drop-off locations, as well as where drivers spend the most time on the road, which helps Uber maximize network efficiency and avoid "deadhead" miles, explained Philip Henry de Frahan, Uber's head of AV infrastructure.

"This is where a lot of AV players are making mistakes, and where Uber is able to avoid those mistakes because we have that data," he said.

• Choosing the wrong location will be costly. "This is a mistake you're going to eat for the next 10 to 20 years," he said.

The latest: Uber said Wednesday that following the launch of its robotaxi service with Lucid and Nuro later this year in San Francisco, its next market will be Houston, starting in mid-2027.

• Nuro is already conducting autonomous on-road testing using about 100 vehicles with safety operators in Houston and the San Francisco Bay area.
• In Houston, beside the maintenance depot, Uber is also planning a dedicated charging pitstop.
• Both facilities will support a future fleet of Lucid Gravity robotaxis powered by Nuro's autonomous technology.

What's next: After Houston, Uber said it plans to bring Lucid robotaxis to "dozens" of additional markets over the coming years.

• To prepare for that (and for robotaxi services with other partners including Zoox, Moia and AVRide), Uber is hiring project developers, design managers and construction managers across the U.S.

The bottom line: With more than 30 AV partners globally across its mobility, delivery and freight businesses, Uber's infrastructure plans are just getting started.