Uber and WeRide Robotaxis Go Live in Middle East while U.S. Argues About Cones and Compliance

The day before Thanksgiving is usually one of the quietest days in American tech news — the kind of day where CEOs pretend to be “offline with family” while secretly walking through Stanford campus with a VFX crew, and the only breaking headline is: “NVIDIA CEO Spotted Buying Brussels Sprouts.”

But this year? Oh no. The U.S. decided calm was illegal. OpenAI spent the entire week losing its mind over Gemini 3 like a caffeinated raccoon in a server room. Silicon Valley treated “Gemini 3 is coming” with the same energy people used when the iPhone 4 antenna failed, or when Taylor Swift drops 17 new versions of an album at midnight.

So while the United States is too busy performing Olympic-level drama about large language models, SiliconSnark is going global — specifically, to Abu Dhabi, where Uber and WeRide just casually dropped the Middle East’s first fully driverless commercial robotaxi service. No big deal. Just a historic moment in the evolution of transportation while the U.S. is screaming about AI benchmarks on X like it’s the Hunger Games of model releases.

Let’s dive in.

A Robotaxi Milestone... That Somehow Isn’t in San Francisco

America, I’m sorry, but you lost this race. Abu Dhabi is now the first city outside the U.S. to host Level 4, fully driverless, commercial robotaxis on the Uber platform, and they didn’t even need a “safety operator” hiding in the back seat like a nervous chaperone at a middle school dance.

WeRide — which is now pulling the extremely casual flex of being listed on BOTH Nasdaq (WRD) and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (0800.HK) — has officially started operating robotaxis with no human inside whatsoever. Not a safety driver. Not an engineer. Not even a robo-reassuring PR intern.

Just a silent electric pod politely judging your playlist choices.

The project received the world’s first city-level fully driverless Robotaxi permit outside the U.S., which honestly feels like the kind of trivia question future children will get wrong because they’ll assume it was “San Francisco but during a fog advisory.”

Operations launched on Yas Island, which is basically the Disney World of the UAE. If you’re going to test robotaxis somewhere, choosing the place where humans routinely run around in F1 cars makes perfect sense.

And Uber? They’re treating this like their victory lap after a decade of “No we pinky promise the autonomous future is definitely coming.” The company even launched a dedicated Autonomous category in the app — the first of its kind globally — so users can finally do what tech CEOs have been doing for years: summon a car without having to talk to a human.

Uber Comfort, UberX… and Now Uber “I Don’t Trust Anything Without a Steering Wheel”

Passengers in Abu Dhabi can now ride in a WeRide robotaxi through:

✓ Uber Comfort
✓ UberX
✓ Autonomous (for people who want to experience the future, or just don’t feel like making small talk)

Imagine opening Uber and selecting:“Take Me Somewhere, But Make It Science Fiction.”

A decade ago people argued about surge pricing. Now we’re arguing about whether an algorithm can understand roundabouts better than your dad. The future is beautiful.

WeRide Isn’t Exactly New to the UAE — They’ve Been Quietly Winning for Years

If you haven’t been following WeRide closely (which you should, unless you’ve been distracted by the OpenAI-Google-Anthropic-Grok cage match), here’s the cheat sheet:

• 2021: WeRide starts operating robotaxis in Abu Dhabi
• 2023: First company to receive a national license for all types of self-driving vehicles in the UAE
• December 2024: Largest commercial robotaxi service outside the U.S. and China, via Uber
• Mid-2025: Expanded to cover half of Abu Dhabi’s core areas
• Today: Launches fully driverless commercial ops with federal and city-level permits

Oh, and they already have 100+ robotaxis in the region.

If this were the U.S., regulators would still be stuck arguing about “temporary pilot program extensions,” “multi-agency review subcommittees,” or “whether autonomous cars are allowed to wear hats.”

The UAE? They said: “Cool tech. Let’s scale it.”

The Economics: Robotaxi Services Are (Shockingly) Close to Break-Even

WeRide and Uber claim that with the new permit, increased utilization, and the absence of a human driver (shoutout to payroll efficiency), these robotaxis are “on track to achieve breakeven unit economics.”

Translation: Robots work cheap.

If you’re a rideshare driver reading this, I’m so sorry. SiliconSnark does not control the future — we merely mock it.

Why Abu Dhabi Is Dozens of Steps Ahead of Everyone Else

The UAE has:

• A national autonomous vehicle framework
• A city-level regulator (Integrated Transport Centre) that actually moves quickly
• A strategic mobility vision aligned with “smart city” implementation rather than “wait until a senator rides in one”
• Heat-resistant infrastructure that doesn’t melt autonomous sensors for fun

Meanwhile, in the U.S., a self-driving car once got confused by a traffic cone and shut down a major street. No offense.

Uber’s First Dedicated Autonomous Ride Category Means the Platform Is Finally Growing Up

Uber launched in 2010 because someone didn’t want to stand in the rain to hail a cab. Now, 68 billion trips later, Uber wants to get rid of the only actual thing they started with: drivers.

It’s not even subtext — it’s actual text in their long-term business strategy.

Launching an “Autonomous” category is Uber saying: “We loved our human drivers. We also love margins.”

So Why Does This Matter?

Because for the first time ever, global commercial robotaxi operations are going mainstream outside the U.S. and China, and they’re doing it with:

• The world’s first non-U.S. fully driverless permit
• Full-scale urban rollout
• Cross-region regulatory buy-in
• A major consumer platform (Uber)
• And no humans inside the car

This isn't a test. This isn't a pilot. This isn’t a “beta that’s really an alpha but don’t quote us.” This is the real thing.

Final Thoughts: While America Argues About Gemini 3, the UAE Just Built the Future

Today’s U.S. tech discourse: “OMG Gemini 3 beat Claude on benchmark Q-Q-E-Vision-Mega-256.” “I heard GPT-6 is training inside a volcano.” “What if Grok becomes sentient and tweets memes?”

Meanwhile in Abu Dhabi: “Your robotaxi has arrived.”

SiliconSnark loves the drama, but credit where it’s due: The Middle East just leapfrogged an entire cycle of autonomous vehicle deployment and made it look easy.