Uber has begun letting select employees ride in Lucid’s Gravity robotaxis in San Francisco as the two companies prepare for a commercial launch later this year.

Uber and Lucid announced their partnership last year and plan to deploy 20,000 electric Gravity SUVs over the next six years. The two companies began testing the autonomous vehicle on the road in December, and letting employees book rides is the next phase of the program.

Testing for Uber employees began last week. Select workers in the San Francisco Bay Area can now request rides directly through the Uber app, and a Gravity SUV with a safety driver will arrive to pick them up.

The news was announced by Nuro, which provides the driver-assistance technology required for the service. Uber is an investor in both Lucid and Nuro, TechCrunch notes.

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“This kind of testing helps connect the autonomy stack, the vehicle platform, and the rider experience in a live operating environment. It gives the teams a way to refine the service as the program moves closer to launch,” Nuro said in a blog post.

(Credit: Lucid)

The Lucid Gravity SUVs are powered by Nuro’s Level 4 autonomous driving system, which is more advanced than the Level 2 “supervised” hands-free driving offered by Tesla, GM, and Ford. Currently, there are 100 Gravity AVs on the road gathering data and undergoing tests, Nuro added. We got a sneak peek at the “production intent” version of the car at CES earlier this year.

The Gravity electric SUVs have three rows of seating and can comfortably accommodate up to six passengers. Uber is touting this as a “premium” offering, so you can expect pricing to touch Uber Black levels. The car itself starts at around $80,000 for base models and recently received the luxury car of the year award at the World Car Awards.

Uber seems to be casting a wider net to attract as many robotaxi partners as possible. The platform already lets users book Waymo robotaxis in Austin and Atlanta, and it will soon add Volkswagen’s ID. Buzz in LA and Amazon’s Zoox robotaxis in LA and Las Vegas as well.