Bolt and Lucid Group signed a memorandum of understanding to develop and deploy at least 25,000 fully autonomous vehicles across major European cities, the largest robotaxi commitment the continent has seen6,11. The deal, announced on September 17, rests on a memorandum with no financial terms, no firm order date, and no capital changing hands.
Lucid CEO Silvio Napoli told the Financial Times the first batch could arrive as early as 20284. The fleet will be built on Lucid's upcoming Midsize platform, the architecture beneath its delayed sub-$50,000 Cosmos crossover, fitted with Nvidia's Hyperion autonomous-vehicle compute and sensing architecture1. The vehicles are designed for SAE Level 4 automation, meaning they can operate without a human driver within defined conditions.
Bolt's fleet ambitions
Bolt, a privately held ride-hailing company operating in 50 countries and more than 850 cities, intends to own and operate the fleet through a dedicated unit called Bolt Autonomous Driving Solutions2. That unit will co-design the vehicle from the product stage, setting software, safety, and rider-experience parameters. Lucid's contribution runs through a newly created division called Lucid Technologies, which consolidates the company's AI, driver-assistance, and autonomy work8.
Bolt's broader target is 100,000 autonomous vehicles on its platform by 2035. The company signed a separate deal with Stellantis in December 2025 and announced a three-way pilot with Pony.ai for Luxembourg in June. Bolt still has no autonomous vehicle carrying a passenger anywhere.
Competitive landscape and Lucid's production gap
The 25,000-vehicle figure is more than twelve times the largest existing European robotaxi commitment: Uber and Pony.ai's 2,000 cars. Uber, Verne, and Pony.ai launched robotaxi rides in Zagreb in August, while Alphabet-owned Waymo is testing autonomous vehicles in Munich ahead of a planned launch in Germany in late 2027. Verne went driverless in Zagreb this month as Europe's first fully autonomous public service. Boston Consulting Group estimates roughly 120,000 robotaxis on European roads by 2035.
Lucid produced 18,378 cars and delivered 15,841 in 2025. The company has yet to deploy a commercial robotaxi version of either of its two existing vehicles. It has spent the past year working with Uber and Nuro to launch a robotaxi version of its Gravity SUV in the United States, with that deployment expected by the end of 2026. Under the U.S. deal, Uber committed to deploy at least 35,000 Lucid vehicles, backed by a $500 million investment. Combined with the Bolt memorandum, the total future Lucid robotaxi commitment reaches at least 60,000 units5.
Lucid recently laid off nearly 20% of its workforce and delayed the Midsize platform's first vehicle by almost a year to the second half of 2027. The EU has no common framework for Level 4 taxis at scale.
Lucid shares rose 10% to $4.44 in Thursday morning trading, though the stock entered the session down 58% year to date. ANALYSIS The Bolt memorandum adds volume ambition but no committed capital, contrasting with the Uber deal's $500 million investment; the binding constraint remains whether Lucid's Midsize platform reaches production on a timeline that converts fleet memoranda into deliveries.