Bolt and Lucid Motors have unveiled plans to deploy at least 25,000 self-driving vehicles across Europe, the Estonian mobility company and the U.S. electric-car maker announced. If the plan comes to fruition, it would stand as Lucid's largest robotaxi commitment to date and would hand Bolt a vehicle engineered specifically for its push into autonomous ride-hailing.

For now, however, no firm orders have been placed and no transactions have been completed. Bolt has not ordered a single Lucid vehicle, which leaves the 25,000-unit target a plan on paper rather than a committed purchase.

Bolt would own and run the fleet

The robotaxis would be built on Lucid's forthcoming mid-size EV platform, which the company describes as smaller and cheaper than its current models, according to TechCrunch. Bolt intends to own and operate the fleet outright rather than lease it, and the two companies will develop the platform with autonomous driving in mind from the start, according to the press release.

Nvidia's Hyperion platform is expected to supply the computing power and sensor hardware required for autonomous driving. What remains unresolved is the software layer that will actually control the vehicles: neither Bolt nor Lucid has named an autonomous-driving software provider in its announcements.

Bolt brings substantial operational grounding to the partnership. Its mobility app runs in more than 850 cities, giving the company years of experience managing transport services across Europe and globally. Founder and CEO Markus Villig said that experience will shape how the two companies approach autonomous driving, with the goal of building a system suited to European roads and regulations. He added that Bolt and Lucid will “co-design the vehicle and software,” drawing on Bolt's vast operating history.

The 25,000-vehicle target would form the first wave of Bolt's much larger ambition of having 100,000 autonomous vehicles on its platform by 2035, and the Lucid partnership is expected to move the ride-hailing company closer to that goal.

Lucid pivots to robotaxis under new CEO

The partnership arrives as Lucid works to reposition its business around new growth opportunities. Since taking over as CEO, Silvio Napoli has cut nearly 20% of the workforce and pushed back the launch of the company's first mid-size vehicle by almost a year, to the second half of 2027, according to TechCrunch. Against that backdrop, the robotaxi market has become an important pillar of Lucid's strategy, with Napoli arguing that supplying vehicles for autonomous fleets could deliver margins that “vastly” exceed those of its traditional retail business.

Lucid has yet to launch a commercial robotaxi. Over the past year, the company has been working with Uber and autonomous-driving firm Nuro on a self-driving version of its Gravity SUV, with a launch targeted for the end of 2026.