Uber partners with ex-Yandex self-driving group for robotaxis and robot delivery

Uber expanded its cohort of autonomous vehicle partners today with the addition of Avride, formerly known as Yandex Self-Driving Group. The companies signed a “multiyear” agreement in which Uber customers can take rides and accept takeout deliveries from Avride’s autonomous vehicles.

Starting this week, Uber customers in Austin will see an option to receive Uber Eats deliveries from Avride’s six-wheeled sidewalk robots. That deal will expand to Dallas and Jersey City, New Jersey, later this year. And in 2025, Avride’s autonomous vehicles will be available to some Uber customers for rides in Dallas. The company also operates delivery robots in South Korea.

Yandex was founded in Russia in 1997 and grew to dominate the country’s online search market. But the company was always interested in expanding to the US. In 2009, the company opened Yandex Labs in Palo Alto, a 10-minute drive from Google’s headquarters. The company sought to hire nearly two dozen engineers who could share with Moscow the latest trends in Silicon Valley.

That interest expanded to include autonomous vehicles after Yandex’s ride-hailing division, Yandex Taxi, acquired all of Uber’s business in Russia in 2017. The two companies formed a joint venture, with several Uber executives joining Yandex’s board of directors. A year later, Yandex launched what it claimed to be the “world’s first robo-taxi business” in Moscow.

The company demonstrated a fully driverless vehicle at CES in Las Vegas in 2020 and then began testing self-driving cars in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Later that year, it launched a robot delivery pilot with Grubhub, with plans to potentially expand to 250 additional college campuses.

Earlier this year, Yandex Self-Driving rebranded as Avride after the parent company (now called Nebius) divested itself in a $5.2 billion sale of all of its businesses in Russia and severing its ties to its original country. The company is now headquartered in Austin.

The tie-up with Uber adds to the steady drumbeat of the ridehail giant’s partnerships as it seeks to become a clearinghouse for any company operating autonomous vehicles in the world. In addition to Avride, Uber has deals with Waymo, Motional, and WeRide for self-driving cars, and Serve, Cartken, and Nuro for delivery robots.