Uber is partnering with Amazon-owned Zoox to let riders book the company’s small, boxy electric vans via the Uber app starting in Las Vegas this summer, with Los Angeles slated to follow in 2027.

Zoox, which began operating in Las Vegas last year, is also about to launch its commercial ride service in the San Francisco Bay area and is testing in Los Angeles. The company this week also said it plans to expand to Dallas and Phoenix, initially with test programs, and also has test vehicles in Seattle, Austin, Miami, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C.

Unlike Waymo’s robotaxis, which give about 500,000 paid rides a week in Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Miami and Orlando (and which are on the Uber app in Atlanta and Austin), Zoox’s vehicle is not a modified version of an existing car model. The company has spent 12 years designing a purpose-built robotaxi, with no steering wheel or standard controls and sliding transit train-style doors, that it believes provides a better ride experience. Production of them is scaling up at its factory in Hayward, California.

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For Uber, this is a strategy, not a novelty. Over the past year, the company has gone on a robotaxi shopping spree—racking up more than two dozen partnerships across autonomous ridehail and trucking, including Waymo, Nuro, Waabi, Aurora, Wayve, Motional, AVRide, and China-based WeRide and Baidu. A decade after Uber tried (and ultimately abandoned) its own self-driving tech, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is working to make the company the de facto platform for autonomous driving, including maintaining, charging and servicing electric robotaxis.

By the end of this year, Uber expects to be booking autonomous rides in up to 15 cities worldwide. Its goal is to be the biggest platform globally for robotaxi ride booking by 2029.

Zoox and Uber didn’t share any financial details, though Uber will likely receive a percentage of each ride booked through its app.

© Forbes