WeRide Companions with Uber to Present Robotaxis in Dubai

Final Up to date on: 18th June 2025, 01:45 am

Whereas the US market focuses on Waymo and Tesla a lot of the time when monitoring and discussing robotaxis, the actual fact is, there are robotaxis in operation outdoors the US already as effectively. One firm creating such car is WeRide. We have now coated WeRide quite a few occasions prior to now, and I’ll come again to that, however the newest information is that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) in addition to Uber as a way to progress robotaxis within the space.

If WeRide sounds acquainted, that’s as a result of we’ve written about it a number of occasions, together with lately. It expanded into 15 extra cities a couple of month in the past. The corporate launched robotaxis in Abu Dhabi about 6 months in the past. The corporate has additionally deployed autonomous streetsweepers in Singapore.

How good WeRide’s autonomous automobiles are, I don’t actually know. However they’re apparently adequate for Uber to make use of them within the UAE. Which means one thing. (Although, we’re speaking about pilot operations with security drivers on board.)

“We’re accelerating our worldwide enlargement, with the Center East as a strategic precedence. Final month, we expanded our partnership with Uber to roll out Robotaxis in 15 further cities over the subsequent 5 years, with cities within the Center East into account, and now, formalized our collaboration with Uber and the RTA to convey autonomous automobiles to Dubai via this MoU,” Jennifer Li, CFO and Head of Worldwide at WeRide, acknowledged with the announcement. “We’re totally aligned with the Dubai Authorities’s bold imaginative and prescient to make 25% of all transportation journeys autonomous by 2030, and are proud to help this objective with our superior expertise and international expertise.”

His Excellency Mattar Al Tayer, Director Basic, Chairman of the Board of Government Administrators of Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority, added: “The introduction of autonomous automobiles in Dubai represents a major leap in the direction of a sensible and sustainable future for mobility, consistent with the imaginative and prescient of our management to remodel Dubai into the world’s smartest metropolis. It additionally helps the targets of the Dubai Good Self-Driving Transport Technique, which seeks to transform 25% of all mobility journeys within the emirate into autonomous journeys throughout varied transport modes by 2030. This MoU reinforces Dubai’s international management in adopting superior and sustainable transport options, embracing state-of-the-art applied sciences, and fostering revolutionary mobility initiatives.”

Frans Hiemstra, Regional Basic Supervisor, MEA at Uber stated: “At Uber, we’re constructing the way forward for transportation, one we see as autonomous, electrical, and shared. At the moment we’re thrilled to ink our partnership with RTA to convey autonomous car operations within the UAE by launching in Dubai in 2025, beginning with WeRide as our first expertise associate. This strategic collaboration anchors our dedication to make autonomous automobiles extra accessible to folks world wide and we’re excited to convey this expertise to 1000’s of riders in Dubai later this 12 months.”

Waymo’s doing effectively in California and, more and more, different US areas. A number of Chinese language robotaxi corporations are doing effectively in China. How briskly can WeRide develop within the UAE, or the Center East extra broadly, and lock that area down for itself? Or — are considered one of these corporations head and shoulders above the others and simply going to come back put them out of enterprise as soon as they get round to a lot broader enlargement? Nicely, WeRide already has autonomous driving permits in China, the USA, the UAE, Singapore, and France. Nevertheless, operations are nonetheless comparatively small.