EVwire brief: Hertz-backed fleet operator Oro Mobility has raised $80 million in strategic equity to grow its rideshare and robotaxi operations, including the upcoming Lucid and Nuro robotaxi fleet it will manage for Uber.
Steve Cohen's family office, Cohen Private Ventures, is among the backers, alongside funds tied to Certares Opportunities and Knighthead Capital Management, as per Axios. Hertz still holds a majority stake in Oro, with Hertz CEO Gil West taking on the executive chairman role while Doria Holbrook remains at the helm as CEO.
Holbrook confirmed the investment on LinkedIn and laid out the role Oro wants to play:
"The future of mobility will be powered by professionally managed fleets. As new mobility models emerge, whether ride share and driver-led or autonomous, demand is growing for an operator that can own, operate and maintain vehicles safely, reliably and at scale. Oro was built for that role."
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Oro is not starting from scratch. Hertz's own employees already drive about 1,000 Oro vehicles for Uber, out of the roughly 45,000 the company rents out to Uber and Lyft drivers. On the autonomous side, San Francisco is set to be the first city for the Lucid robotaxis Oro will run.
Most of what the money pays for is physical, such as depots, chargers and the vehicles themselves (both driver-led and driverless) plus the software needed to run fleets at scale. Holbrook told Axios that location and grid access largely decide what a depot costs, putting the range anywhere between a few million dollars for a retrofit and tens of millions for a new build.
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Context:
Uber, Lucid and Nuro, the trio whose robotaxis Oro will manage, have been scaling their programs quickly. Uber first committed in July 2025 to deploying at least 20,000 Lucid Gravity robotaxis running the Nuro Driver, a goal the companies have since lifted to 35,000 or more. After the Bay Area, the partners named Houston as their next market, with public rides expected by mid-2027.
Oro also joins a growing group of companies building the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that robotaxi fleets depend on. In Nashville, Flexdrive by Lyft has opened an 80,000-square-foot AV depot to house Waymo's robotaxis, while Terawatt Infrastructure, one of Waymo's charging partners, has lined up up to $300 million in debt for robotaxi charging.
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