Stellantis (STLA.US), Uber Technologies, Inc. (UBER.US) and the self-driving unicorn Wayve have formed an L4 alliance, sparking a new trend of collaboration in the American robotaxi market.

Notice that car giant Stellantis (STLA.US), autonomous driving company Wayve, and ride-hailing platform Uber Technologies, Inc. (UBER.US) are collaborating to jointly develop and deploy L4 level autonomous driving transportation services. This collaboration is built upon the existing strategic partnerships between the three parties, including the recent L2++ level autonomous driving agreement between Stellantis and Wayve, as well as the partnership between Wayve and Uber both parties planning to deploy autonomous driving ride-hailing services in London, Tokyo, and 10 other cities globally starting this year. As part of this collaboration, the three companies plan to work together on vehicle integration, testing, validation, and deployment to bring safe, reliable, and scalable autonomous driving transportation services to cities in Europe, North America, and other regions. In February of this year, autonomous driving startup Wayve raised $1.2 billion in a Series D funding round led by financial investors, valuing the company at $8.6 billion post-investment. Participants in this funding round include Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US), NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA.US), Uber Technologies, Inc., as well as global automakers Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, and Stellantis. The U.S. "robotaxi" market: Who is leading and who can make money The U.S. robotaxi service market is moving away from the early chaos of intense competition and entering a new stage of large-scale implementation intertwined with the ecosystems of giants, technological differentiation, and cross-industry alliances. According to estimates, orders for autonomous driving transportation in the U.S. are expected to see rapid growth: around 15 million orders in 2025, increasing to around 36 million in 2026; by 2030, the scale of transportation is forecasted to reach nearly 750 million orders, with a market size of $7 billion and a compound annual growth rate of up to 90%. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. predicts that by 2030, the number of commercial autonomous driving vehicles in the U.S. will surge to 35,000. Behind this explosive growth is the increase in technological maturity, relaxation in regulatory environments, and continuous influx of capital. Currently, the actual operational share of the U.S. robotaxi market is mainly dominated by two core players: Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, and Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors Company. As a staunch representative of LiDAR and high-precision mapping routes, Waymo has achieved full autonomous commercial operations in major cities such as Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin. Through its self-built Waymo One platform, it provides tens of thousands of trips per week. Waymo's advantage lies in its high safety record and mature end-to-end software and hardware integration, making it the only player in the U.S. market that has truly achieved large-scale balance between revenue and expenses in pilot projects. After undergoing a brief suspension due to safety incidents and regulatory turbulence, Cruise completed a deep restructuring of its safety architecture and management, and has fully resumed road testing and limited commercial operations in cities like Houston, Dallas, and Phoenix. As a benchmark incubated by traditional automakers, Cruise still has strong funding and front-line production line support from General Motors Company, and is attempting to regain ground by accelerating the compliance process. In addition to the established players, the market is seeing the emergence of two highly disruptive superplayers: Tesla, Inc., with its FSD (Fully Autonomous Driving) system based on pure visual and end-to-end neural network technology, is aggressively promoting its proprietary robotaxi (Cybercab) commercialization. Tesla, Inc.'s strategy does not depend on expensive hardware, but instead plans to activate millions of existing vehicles globally to build a decentralized autonomous travel network. Its massive cost advantage and vast data loop are the biggest potential threat to existing players. As a representation of the new generation of "embodied intelligence" in autonomous driving unicorns, British startup Wayve, after securing funding of over $1 billion from giants like NVIDIA Corporation and Microsoft Corporation, is rapidly penetrating the North American market. Wayve focuses on generalized large model technology that does not require high-precision maps and has reached cooperation agreements with automakers like Stellantis, becoming a significant technology exporter in the market.