Uber and Lyft agree with Baidu to test robotaxis in London. Shares jumped

U.S. rival cab hailing services Uber and Lyft have separately announced a partnership with Chinese tech giant Baidu to launch unmanned cabs in Britain in 2026, Reuters reported. Shares in both companies jumped several percent in trading on Dec. 22.

Under the terms of the agreements, Baidu's Apollo Go RT6 cars will appear in the Uber and Lyft networks in London in 2026 for the purpose of testing. This will be the first example of direct competition between American and Chinese giants of the sector in the European capital, especially after the start of test rides of unmanned cars of Google's subsidiary Waymo, noted Reuters.

Shares of Uber at trading on Monday rose in price at the moment by 3.7%: the price rose to $82.25. Lyft shares rose even more actively: they jumped at the moment to 20.52 - this is 5.7% more than it was at the close of the day before.

For Lyft, unmanned cab trials in London will simultaneously form the basis for international expansion after buying European cab app FreeNow for $200 million, Reuters writes.

At the same time, it is still unclear how profitable the robotaxi business model can be, Bloomberg notes. Public companies from this sphere Pony AI and WeRide are still unprofitable: they sold shares at IPO to raise funds, the agency added. Analysts warn that the high cost of autonomous car fleets could put pressure on the margins of platforms including Uber and Lyft, Reuters reports. The most viable model analysts have called hybrid networks, in which robotaxis are supplemented by human drivers to manage demand peaks and prices, it said.

The coming of robotaxis from Baidu, Uber and Lyft to London reflects a broader global trend, with Baidu and WeRide expanding operations in the Middle East and Switzerland, and cities such as Austin and San Francisco in the U.S., Abu Dhabi in the UAE and China's Wuhan already becoming major hubs for robotaxi services, Reuters also writes.

Uber shares are up about 35% in 2025. Analysts are confidently advising to buy the securities: they have 42 Buy ratings and six Overweight ("above market") versus 11 Hold (recommendation to hold), MarketWatch shows. There is no advice to sell. The average target price is $112.4, up 42% from the last close.

Lyft securities have grown even more strongly since January - by 56%. But the attitude to them on Wall Street is ambiguous: the most popular recommendation is to hold (33 Hold) with 15 tips to buy (14 Buy and one Overweight) and two - to sell (one rating Sell and Underweight). The price growth potential is estimated at an average of 26%.

Uber back in 2020 abandoned its own division for the development of autonomous driving technologies and sold it to the startup Aurora: now the company relies on partnerships with various developers of robotaxis, Bloomberg writes. The head of Uber Dara Khosrowshahi in an interview with Bloomberg Television said that the service expects to launch unmanned rides in more than ten cities by the end of next year.

Uber's competitors are strategizing in similar ways, Bloomberg notes: Lyft has already entered into a separate agreement with Baidu to launch robotaxis in Europe, and Southeast Asian service Grab is partnering with Chinese companies WeRide and Momenta.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor