SAN FRANCISCO—Calling it “the future of transportation,” Uber today unveiled footage of CEO Dara Khosrowshahi confidently riding in a robotaxi that autonomously handled nearly every driving task while a human sat inches away, silently preparing to save everyone if things became interesting.
Witnesses described the demonstration as “extremely impressive” and “almost exactly like teaching your teenager to drive.”
The promotional video showed the Lucid Gravity effortlessly navigating city streets, making turns, avoiding traffic, and stopping at lights, while the safety driver heroically resisted the overwhelming urge to grab the wheel for the entire trip.
Industry analysts hailed the event as a breakthrough, noting that the vehicle successfully completed dozens of routine driving maneuvers before the human backup was forced to perform his primary duty: existing.
“It’s revolutionary,” said one investor. “We’ve finally eliminated 98% of the driver’s responsibilities while retaining 100% of the driver’s payroll.”
The announcement follows reports that Waymo vehicles quietly disappeared from Uber’s Phoenix app, prompting Uber to reassure investors that replacing one robotaxi partner with another robotaxi partner is actually a completely different strategy.
Uber says it plans to deploy at least 35,000 autonomous Lucid vehicles over the coming years, each equipped with cutting-edge AI, advanced sensors, redundant computing systems, and—until further notice—Steve.
Wall Street responded enthusiastically, pushing Lucid shares higher on the groundbreaking news that the technology continues to advance toward the long-standing industry milestone known as “Almost There™.”