Uber Technologies Inc (UBER  ) Thursday announced a multi-year strategic partnership with Lucid Group Inc (LCID  ) and self-driving software maker Nuro to add more than 20,000 autonomous vehicles (AVs) to the Uber platform over the next six years.

  • BofA Securities analyst Justin Post maintained a Buy rating and price target of $115.
  • JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth reiterated an Overweight rating on the stock.
BofA Securities: The launch of the partnership is expected "later next year in a major US city," before it expands to "dozens" of markets around the world, Post said in a note. Lucid is an EV equipment manufacturer and Nuro will develop the self-driving software, he added.

"As a part of the deal, Uber will also make multi-hundred-million-dollar investments in Lucid and Nuro," the analyst wrote. Driven by AI, the AV ecosystem could grow over the next few years, which would benefit Uber as the demand aggregator, he further stated.

JPMorgan: The partnership announcement indicates that Uber is aiming to build out "the AV use case," Anmuth said. The company will invest $300 million in Lucid and "hundreds of millions of dollars in Nuro," he added.

The announcement follows the partnership between Uber and Baidu (BIDU  ) announced earlier this week. The companies plan to deploy thousands of Apollo Go robotaxis on Uber's network in several non-US markets.

There could be several players across the market in the longer term, the analyst wrote.

UBER Price Action: Shares of Uber Technologies had declined by 0.39% to $90.19 at the time of publication on Friday.