(By Observer.com, Zhang Jiadong; Editor: Gao Xin)

According to a report by the Financial Times on August 22, the autonomous driving technology company Nuro, backed by SoftBank, has completed a $203 million (about 1.45 billion RMB) funding round, with Uber and Nvidia as the lead investors. Nuro stated that this transaction will bring its total valuation to $6 billion (about 4.307 billion RMB).

Nuro was founded by two technical experts from Waymo

The report states that this transaction comes at a time when groups such as Uber and Nvidia are increasing their spending in this field, showing a new wave of enthusiasm for autonomous driving technology investment in the United States.

According to incomplete statistics, since the beginning of this year, Uber has signed agreements with more than a dozen automobile manufacturers and autonomous vehicle technology providers. Nvidia is also making a series of investments in the field of autonomous driving.

Among them, the Chinese autonomous driving startup WeRide received a $25 million (about 180 million RMB) investment from Nvidia in February this year, and an $100 million (about 710 million RMB) investment from Uber in May. In addition, both companies have jointly invested in Wayve, headquartered in London, UK.

Although the operating license of General Motors' autonomous vehicle fleet Cruise was completely suspended in 2023 due to personal injury accidents, the investment enthusiasm for Robotaxi in the United States has not declined because of this.

Since last year, the technological and investment competition in the US Robotaxi sector has been intensifying. In October, Waymo, an autonomous vehicle company under Alphabet, Google's parent company, announced the completion of a $5.6 billion (about 40.2 billion RMB) funding round; while Cruise, which is currently in a shutdown state, has actively resumed operations through investment cooperation with Uber.

Tesla Robotaxi INSIDE EVS

Entering 2025, Elon Musk's Tesla Robotaxi is about to hit the road, and the Trump administration's claim in April this year to relax autonomous driving regulations and cut down on the originally cumbersome accident reporting process have once again sparked a new wave of investment enthusiasm for autonomous driving in the United States.

Sean Duffy, the U.S. Transportation Secretary, said at the time, "The government recognizes that autonomous driving is a high-risk innovation race. The new policy framework will greatly reduce the cumbersome procedures and place the industry under a unified national standard." This policy adjustment is considered the biggest relaxation of autonomous driving regulations in the United States.

Foreign media noted that in recent months, Waymo has successfully launched autonomous taxis in multiple cities in the United States, including Austin, Phoenix, and San Francisco, sparking investor interest in the field. Traditional automobile manufacturers such as General Motors and Ford are investing in autonomous systems, while Amazon and Tesla are also developing fully autonomous vehicles.

As of now, apart from companies like Tesla and Waymo that have already achieved Robotaxi operations in multiple states in the United States, autonomous driving startups May Mobility, the new car manufacturer Lucid in the U.S., and ride-hailing giant Lyft have all stated that they will accelerate their layout in the Robotaxi field.

Nuro, which has recently received the latest investment, was established in 2016. Its initial goal was to develop autonomous delivery robots, but it later shifted to licensing its platform and services. Currently, the company aims to provide L2-level driving assistance systems to car manufacturers and other suppliers, as well as more advanced L4-level systems.

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