Inside the Nuro–Lucid–Uber Partnership with Andrew Chapin

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In today’s episode, I’m speaking with Andrew Chapin, Chief Operating Officer at Nuro, a leading self-driving technology company. Andrew was also among the earliest employees at Uber, rising to lead their global vehicle programs and partnerships, so it was cool to hear about this partnership coming full circle for him.

We discuss Nuro’s history and recent pivot from purpose built delivery vehicles into licensing their autonomous technology for robotaxis and personally owned autonomous vehicles. We also spent a lot of time covering their recent partnership with Uber and Lucid to equip 20,000 Lucid Gravity’s with the Nuro driver, for deployment on the Uber network.

We also dive into the differences between the AV 1.0 and AV 2.0 models, Nuro's AI-first approach, the complexities of integrating self-driving technologies into vehicles, and the future of autonomy in both ride-share and delivery services

Chapters

(00:00) Introduction to Andrew Chapin and Nuro

(02:13) Overview of Nuro and how their focus has changed over the years

(05:05) The difference between AV 1.0 vs AV 2.0

(07:18) Challenges in developing and deploying AVs

(08:48) The main advantage of the Nuro–Lucid–Uber partnership.

(09:36) Details of the current Nuro product — The Nuro Driver

(10:35) What the Nuro-Lucid robotaxi would look like

(12:24) How the Nuro Driver will complement the Lucid Gravity

(14:20) Cost of Integrating the Nuro Hardware and the Scalability of their approach

(17:57) Nuro’s past products and driverless deployments

(24:01) Behind the Scenes of the Nuro–Lucid–Uber Partnership

(26:27) Why did Uber choose Nuro

(28:12) The Nuro Driver’s safety case

(31:42) Uber’s role in the Nuro–Lucid–Uber Partnership

(34:54) Nuro’s vision for the future of autonomy

(36:30) The most popular and possible use cases for autonomy

(42:10) Conclusion and final thoughts

- Harry

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