Avride

Avride is an Austin-based developer of automated-driving systems for passenger vehicles and sidewalk delivery robots. It is a subsidiary of Nebius and continues the international engineering program begun inside Yandex in 2017. The Avride name was introduced in 2023 for the international team, ahead of the Dutch parent's 2024 divestment of Yandex's Russia-based businesses.^{[1][2][3][4][5][8]}

Avride develops and operates both vehicle types, applying related robotics and perception components to road and sidewalk operations. Its largest documented commercial programs are a supervised passenger service offered through Uber in Dallas and robot delivery through Uber Eats, Grubhub, university dining systems, and partners in Japan. The Dallas service launched in December 2025 with an onboard specialist behind the wheel. As of Aug. 22, 2026, Avride had not announced that the service had completed its transition to operation with nobody in the driver's seat.^[5][6]

Key facts

Scroll sideways for more →

History and corporate structure

Yandex Self-Driving Group

Yandex began developing proprietary self-driving technology in 2017 and added its Yandex.Rover delivery robot program in late 2019. In September 2020, Yandex and Uber agreed to spin Yandex Self Driving Group B.V. out of their ride-hailing and food-technology joint venture. The announced structure assigned 73 percent to Yandex, 19 percent to Uber, and 8 percent for management and employees, while Yandex committed an additional $150 million.^[2]

The international operation later adopted the Avride name. Forbes reported in July 2024 that the former Yandex Self-Driving Group had re-emerged as an Austin-headquartered company after pausing US testing in 2022. TechCrunch described the international team as moving through Tel Aviv to Austin and retaining engineers from the earlier program. These accounts establish organizational and engineering continuity, but earlier Yandex activity is not automatically a current Avride operating statistic.^[3][4]

Retention by Nebius

Yandex N.V. agreed in February 2024 to sell its Russia-based businesses and selected international assets. An SEC-filed April 2024 report identified Avride as one of four international technology businesses the Dutch holding company would retain. After the divestment, that holding company became Nebius Group, which continued to report Avride as a business segment in August 2026.^[5][8]

In October 2025, Avride and Nebius announced up to $375 million in strategic investments and commercial commitments from Uber and Nebius. That wording covers both investment and commercial commitments and sets a maximum. It does not establish that Avride received $375 million in cash or completed a conventional financing round for that amount.^[7]

Technology and products

Passenger-vehicle system

Avride describes its passenger-vehicle system as using high-definition maps, lidar, cameras, radar, and onboard computing. Its current company page lists 13 cameras and four radars and says its central lidar can detect objects beyond 300 metres, with additional side lidar for nearby coverage. These are manufacturer specifications, not independently measured performance results.^[10]

Those sensors feed localization, computer vision, prediction, and planning software. Avride describes cross-checking information from multiple sensors, an approach generally called sensor fusion. A 2024 Nebius presentation says the passenger-car and robot programs share simulation, localization, perception, and model-training components. The presentation also lists remote assistance and mechanics among robot operating costs, showing that the commercial system includes human and maintenance infrastructure as well as onboard automation.^[11]

Delivery robot

Avride's four-wheeled robot is designed for sidewalks, pedestrian areas, and crossings. The company lists a maximum speed of 8 km/h, a stated range of 50 km per charge, a maximum cargo weight of 25 kg, lidar, cameras, ultrasonic sensors, and a swappable battery. Its FAQ says the robot normally navigates on its own but can request assistance and can be remotely controlled by a support team in unusual situations.^[12]

The phrase "autonomous delivery" therefore describes the navigation system and service category, not the absence of all human support. Dispatch, loading, maintenance, fault response, remote assistance, and customer support remain operational functions. Avride has not published an independently audited account of how often each form of intervention occurs across every deployment.^[11][12]

Published research lineage

Researchers from the predecessor Yandex Self-Driving Group co-authored Shifts, a peer-reviewed NeurIPS 2021 dataset and benchmark for distribution shift. Its vehicle-motion portion contains 600,000 ten-second scenes from six locations, three seasons, three times of day, and four weather conditions. The task studies trajectory prediction and uncertainty when conditions differ from the training distribution.^[13]

Shifts documents research produced by the predecessor team and the diversity of one historical dataset. It did not test Avride's current vehicles, current software, Dallas service, or delivery-robot fleet. It is not evidence that present commercial operations meet a particular safety level.^[13]

Commercial operations

Uber partnership and Dallas passenger service

Uber and Avride announced a multiyear partnership in October 2024. Delivery robots were to launch first on Uber Eats in Austin, followed by Dallas and Jersey City, while passenger rides in Dallas were then planned for 2025. A March 2025 agreement with Hyundai called for Ioniq 5 vehicles to be assembled in Georgia and retrofitted with Avride's system. The stated plan to expand to as many as 100 vehicles during 2025 was a target at announcement, not an achieved fleet count.^[14][15]

Uber opened the Dallas passenger service on Dec. 3, 2025. Eligible UberX, Comfort, and Comfort Electric requests could be matched with an Avride Ioniq 5 within a nine-square-mile area covering parts of Downtown, Uptown, Turtle Creek, and Deep Ellum. Riders could decline the automated vehicle. Uber explicitly described the launch as a path to driverless operation: an onboard specialist monitored behind the wheel at launch, with nobody-behind-the-wheel operation left for a future phase.^[6]

A City of Dallas memo described an initial fleet of up to ten vehicles and likewise identified a safety rider in the driver's seat. Nebius's August 2026 shareholder letter later said Avride's AV-capable fleet had exceeded 200 vehicles in May, completed more than one million autonomous miles during 2026, passed 60,000 commercial Dallas rides, and doubled its Dallas operating map after launch. Those later scale figures are company-reported and do not show how many rides or miles had an onboard operator, a passenger, or a remote intervention.^[8][16]

Robot delivery

Robot delivery preceded the Dallas passenger service. The 2024 Uber agreement began with Uber Eats, while a Grubhub partnership placed 100 Avride robots at Ohio State in January 2025. In October 2025, Grubhub said the partners had completed more than 100,000 robot deliveries across US campuses and that Ohio State's fleet had grown beyond 120 robots.^[14][17][18]

Documented university launches expanded in 2026. Salisbury University announced a 15-robot service in February. Indiana University said 24 robots would deploy on June 8 after campus mapping, and Nebius's second-quarter letter later reported the Bloomington service as live. These campus sources establish particular deployments, not the size of Avride's entire network.^[8][19][20]

Outside the United States, Rakuten launched a service in part of Tokyo on Feb. 27, 2025, with plans for up to ten Avride robots. Rakuten said the model had passed the Japan Robot Delivery Association's safety standard in December 2024. That is a service-specific statement about the Japanese program, not a certification for every Avride vehicle or jurisdiction.^[21]

Nebius reported in August 2026 that Avride had exceeded 600,000 robot deliveries since inception and had launched Uber Eats robot operations in Arlington, Virginia, and Miami during the second quarter. The filing does not provide an independent audit of the cumulative total or break it down by city, partner, level of remote assistance, or delivery outcome.^[8]

August 2026 campus expansion plan

On Aug. 20, 2026, Avride announced a further US campus expansion. Its fuller company update said that by September it expected more than 1,000 active delivery robots at more than 25 campuses, with potential access to more than 610,000 students. It separately described this as approximately 4.5 times its previous campus footprint. The company said ten additional campuses had launched during the semester and eleven more were scheduled by the end of September.^[22][23]

The shorter X post compressed those measures into "4.5x Reach" while also describing potential student access as rising from 36,000 to more than 610,000. That numerical ratio is about 16.9, not 4.5. The supportable reading is that 4.5 referred to campus footprint, while the student figure described potential reach. Potential reach is not a count of customers, orders, or students who received a delivery.^[22][23]

The more-than-1,000-robot and more-than-25-campus figures were September projections at the Aug. 22 research cutoff. They should not be read as completed August deployments. Several university operations were documented as live, but the scheduled September launches and final aggregate had not all been independently confirmed.^{[8][19][20][22][23]}

Safety and regulatory scrutiny

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened preliminary evaluation PE26003 on May 6, 2026. The opening resume's failure-summary table lists 16 crashes or incidents, property damage, one alleged minor injury, no fatalities, and an estimated population of 200 vehicles. NHTSA said its preliminary video review included lane changes into nearby vehicles' paths, failures to slow or stop for traffic ahead, failures to avoid vehicles entering the path, and collisions with stationary obstructions.^[9]

NHTSA also said the automated-driving system was performing the dynamic driving task during each cited crash while an in-vehicle operator supervised from the driver's seat. The evaluation was opened to assess system behavior and operator supervision. An opening investigation is not a final defect finding, recall, or determination of cause. No NHTSA closing resume was located by Aug. 22, 2026.^[9][24]

Avride told TechCrunch that it had introduced technical and operational mitigations after the incidents and that incident frequency per mile had declined. The publication reported that Avride did not explain why the onboard monitors did not intervene in the crashes. Both points are part of the company's response and the publication's reporting, not findings in the NHTSA opening resume.^[25]

The available figures do not support a comparative safety rate. A crash count needs a consistent exposure measure, operational area, severity definition, and reporting method before it can be compared with human drivers or another automated-driving company. Conversely, cumulative miles, rides, simulations, sensor redundancy, and the absence of fatalities in this set do not by themselves validate a claim that the system is safer than a human driver.^[8][9]

Evidence limits

Avride publishes substantial scale and performance information, but much of it comes from the company, its parent, or commercial partners. Fleet, ride, delivery, campus, and student-reach totals should retain their dates and attribution. Announced targets should not be combined with completed deployments, and "AV-capable" should not be treated as a count of vehicles offering public rides at one time.^{[8][17][18][22][23]}

Operational terms also require context. The Dallas launch had an onboard specialist, the delivery robots use a remote support path, and the company was still describing a transition toward no-vehicle-operator passenger service in August 2026. "Autonomous" is therefore a description of the driving or navigation system within defined operations, not evidence that people play no supervisory, support, maintenance, or recovery role.^{[6][8][11][12]}

References

1. ^Avride. "About us." Accessed Aug. 22, 2026. avride.ai/about
2. ^Yandex. "Yandex Restructures Self-Driving Business." Sept. 4, 2020. yandex.com/...2020-09-04
3. ^Sam Abuelsamid. "Former Yandex Self-Driving Group Reemerges As Avride." Forbes, July 16, 2024. forbes.com/...lf-driving-group-reemerges-as-avride
4. ^Paul Sawers. "The curious case of Nebius, the publicly traded AI infrastructure startup." TechCrunch, Nov. 24, 2024. techcrunch.com/...traded-ai-infrastructure-startup
5. ^Yandex N.V. "First Quarter 2024 Financial Results." SEC Exhibit 99.1, April 26, 2024. sec.gov/...yndx-20240331xex99d1
6. ^Uber. "Uber and Avride Launch Robotaxi Rides in Dallas." Dec. 3, 2025. uber.com/...avride-on-uber
7. ^Nebius Group. "Avride secures strategic investment and other commitments of up to $375 million, backed by Uber and Nebius." SEC Exhibit 99.1, Oct. 22, 2025. sec.gov/...tm2529289d1_ex99-1
8. ^Nebius Group. "Letter to shareholders, Q2 2026." SEC Exhibit 99.2, Aug. 12, 2026. sec.gov/...tm2622968d1_ex99-2
9. ^National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "ODI Resume, Preliminary Evaluation PE26003." Opened May 6, 2026. static.nhtsa.gov/...INOA-PE26003-14280.pdf
10. ^Avride. "Autonomous Driver." Accessed Aug. 22, 2026. avride.ai/driver
11. ^Nebius Group. "Investor Presentation." SEC Exhibit 99.1, October 2024. sec.gov/...tm2426436d1_ex99-1
12. ^Avride. "Delivery Robot." Accessed Aug. 22, 2026. avride.ai/robot
13. ^Andrey Malinin et al. "Shifts: A Dataset of Real Distributional Shift Across Multiple Large-Scale Tasks." NeurIPS 2021 Datasets and Benchmarks. datasets-benchmarks-proceedings.neurips.cc/...und2.pdf
14. ^Uber. "Uber and Avride Announce Autonomous Delivery and Mobility Partnership." Oct. 3, 2024. investor.uber.com/...default
15. ^Rebecca Bellan. "Hyundai pairs up with Yandex spinoff Avride to develop robotaxis." TechCrunch, March 5, 2025. techcrunch.com/...noff-avride-to-develop-robotaxis
16. ^City of Dallas. "Launch of Avride Autonomous Vehicle Services." Dec. 5, 2025. dallascityhall.com/...ous%20Vehicle%20Services.pdf
17. ^Grubhub. "Avride and Grubhub Bring Autonomous Delivery Robots to U.S. College Campuses." Jan. 30, 2025. about.grubhub.com/...obots-to-u-s-college-campuses
18. ^Grubhub. "Grubhub Expands Partnership with Avride to Bring Autonomous Delivery Robots to Its Marketplace." Oct. 23, 2025. about.grubhub.com/...ery-robots-to-its-marketplace
19. ^Salisbury University. "SU Launches On-Campus Robot Food Delivery." Feb. 2, 2026. wwwnew.salisbury.edu/...Campus-Robot-Food-Delivery
20. ^Indiana University. "Grubhub delivery robots to activate on campus." June 1, 2026. today.iu.edu/...ivery-robots-to-activate-on-campus
21. ^Rakuten Group. "Rakuten Launches Autonomous Delivery Service Using Robots in Tokyo's Harumi Area." Feb. 26, 2025. global.rakuten.com/...0226_01
22. ^Avride. "Avride is expanding autonomous campus delivery." X, Aug. 20, 2026. x.com/...2090416809371422949
23. ^Avride. "Company updates." LinkedIn, accessed Aug. 22, 2026. linkedin.com/...avrideai
24. ^Reuters. "US opens probe into startup Avride self-driving crashes in Texas." May 8, 2026. investing.com/...fdriving-crashes-in-texas-4673157
25. ^Kirsten Korosec. "Uber partner Avride is under investigation for self-driving crashes." TechCrunch, May 8, 2026. techcrunch.com/...igation-for-self-driving-crashes