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Uber ( UBER ) outlines three business models for robotaxi strategy

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CFO says robotaxi investments will be modest compared to

capital

returns

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Investments expected to pay off, but profitability years

away,

investors say

(Adds background in paragraphs 2, 7 and 9)

By Akash Sriram

Aug 6 (Reuters) - Uber ( UBER ) is in talks with private

equity firms and banks to secure funds to build its robotaxi

business, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said, as the ride-hailing giant

bets on a mass roll-out of the nascent and much-scrutinized

technology.

Uber ( UBER ), which offers robotaxis from Alphabet-owned

Waymo, has been strengthening its foothold in the self-driving

taxi industry through partnerships with automakers such as

Volkswagen and Lucid, just as Tesla

seeks to expand its fledgling robotaxi business.

Khosrowshahi on Wednesday pitched the tie-ups as part of a

larger plan that involves three robotaxi business models: paying

partners that own such vehicles a fixed rate, sharing revenue

with fleet operators and owning vehicles while licensing

software for self-driving technology.

"We are talking to private equity players, we have talked to

banks," the CEO said. "Once we prove the revenue model, how much

these cars can generate on a per day basis, there will be plenty

of financing to go around."

For now, Uber ( UBER ) said it was planning on using a "modest"

portion of its around $7 billion in annual cash flows to fund

deployments. It might also sell minority stakes in companies to

aid the expansion, it said.

Analysts have said that mass robotaxi deployment could lower

driver-reliant Uber's ( UBER ) operating costs and boost profitability.

The company has been offering Waymo robotaxis on its

ride-hailing app in Austin, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia. In

April, Uber ( UBER ) entered a deal with Volkswagen for thousands of

autonomous electric vans in the United States over the next

decade.

It also struck a $300 million partnership in July that will

allow it to deploy more than 20,000 autonomous taxis, made by EV

startup Lucid and powered by self-driving tech from Nuro, over

six years.

Despite strong regulatory scrutiny, doubts about wider

adoption, and high costs forcing many firms to shut down, Tesla

and Waymo have been pushing to expand robotaxi services, a

business Elon Musk has said could be worth trillions of dollars.

Waymo is present in five U.S. cities, including San

Francisco, while Tesla launched a limited robotaxi service in

Austin in June and started ride-hailing operations in the Bay

Area last month.

Uber ( UBER ) said it has not yet seen any changes in demand trends

in Austin or San Francisco since Tesla's services were launched

in the cities.

"To a lot of these companies, it does seem this will be a

worthwhile endeavor ... as there are lofty predictions about the

robotaxi industry's total addressable market," said Ken Mahoney,

CEO of Mahoney Asset Management.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya

Soni, Shinjini Ganguli and Lincoln Feast.)