Dave Ferguson, the co-founder and president of Nuro, is one of the most well-known names in the fast-changing world of robotics and autonomous technology. His company is changing the way packages are delivered through AI and self-driving cars. Ferguson has worked in robotics and machine learning for more than 20 years. He has gone from doing academic research to running one of the best-funded autonomous vehicle startups in the US. This article talks about Ferguson’s journey, his vision for Nuro, and how his work has changed the way people live.
From New Zealand to the top of the robotics world
Dave Ferguson was born in New Zealand, and his path to becoming a robotics pioneer was anything but normal. Ferguson started out at the University of Otago with the goal of getting a law degree. However, a friend suggested that he take a computer science class, which changed his path. He saw a red Dalek-style trash can robot here, which sparked his lifelong interest in robotics. Ferguson said in an interview, “That was what really inspired me and got me excited about robots. Everything else just fell into place after that.”
This new interest made him major in computer science and math at Otago. After that, he got his MS and PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, which is known for its cutting-edge robotics research. Ferguson was in charge of planning for Carnegie Mellon’s team that won the DARPA Urban Grand Challenge in 2007. The competition showed off self-driving cars driving around a fake city. His work went beyond the classroom; one of his algorithms made NASA’s Mars Rovers able to drive themselves over long distances, which shows how much of an impact he had in the field early on.
A Vision for Self-Driving Delivery: From Google to Nuro
Ferguson’s career took a big step forward in 2011 when he became the main engineer on Google’s self-driving car project, which is now known as Waymo. He led teams that worked on scene understanding, behavior prediction, computer vision, and machine learning, which are all important parts of self-driving car technology. Ferguson met Jiajun Zhu (JZ), another engineer, while he was working at Google for five years. Zhu shared Ferguson’s vision for using robotics to change industries other than passenger transport.
Ferguson and Zhu started Nuro in 2016 because they felt it was their duty to use the Bay Area’s talent and funding ecosystem to solve real-world problems. Nuro is different from other self-driving car companies that focus on getting people from one place to another. Instead, they want to deliver goods because almost 45% of car trips in the U.S. are for errands like shopping. Ferguson said in an interview in 2024 that “Americans make a total of 220 billion personal vehicle trips a year, and more than 20% are for shopping and other errands.” “We want to help people spend less time in their cars.”
The R1, R2, and third-generation “Nuro” vehicles are Nuro’s main products. They are fully autonomous electric delivery vehicles that are made just for moving things. These cars are lighter, faster, and safer than regular passenger cars. They weigh 1,500 pounds and are about half the width of a sedan. They also go slower and have been through a lot of safety testing. Nuro’s vehicles also have advanced HVAC systems that keep the temperature just right for things like groceries or prescriptions, making them perfect for working with big stores.
Building Nuro: Working Together and Making a Difference
Nuro has raised more than $2 billion from investors like SoftBank, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity, Greylock, and Tiger Global since it started. In its 2021 funding round, the company was worth $8.6 billion. The company’s growth has been greatly helped by its partnerships with big retailers like Kroger, Domino’s Pizza, Walmart, CVS, and Chipotle. Nuro’s first pilot for self-driving delivery started in 2018 with Kroger in Scottsdale, Arizona. Since then, the company has expanded to Houston and California. Nuro’s shift toward licensing its Level 4 autonomy software, the Nuro Driver™, to automakers and mobility providers began with a 10-year partnership with Uber and a 2025 partnership with Uber and Lucid to create a luxury robotaxi based on the Lucid Gravity vehicle.
Ferguson’s leadership has helped Nuro get through regulatory problems. In 2020, Nuro became the first company to get an exemption from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for its self-driving cars. This exemption let Nuro use up to 5,000 vehicles without passengers, which was a big deal during the COVID-19 pandemic when demand for contactless delivery went through the roof. Ferguson said, “Before the pandemic, [contactless delivery] was seen as a nice-to-have.” “Now the fact that it doesn’t require contact is so valuable.”
Nuro’s effects go beyond making things easier. The company’s vehicles aim to make roads safer, lower emissions, and give people in underserved areas like food deserts access to goods by cutting down on the number of personal vehicle trips. During the pandemic, Nuro sent its robots to Sacramento and San Mateo to bring food and supplies to COVID patients. This showed how useful they could be in times of crisis.
A Different Way of Leading
Ferguson is the co-founder and president of the company. He works with Zhu, who is the CEO. Ferguson is in charge of finance, investments, and partnerships, while Zhu is in charge of technology and people. This split of duties has helped Nuro grow quickly. The leadership team takes care of day-to-day tasks, while the co-founders set the company’s long-term goals. Ferguson and Zhu talked about the emotional similarities between being a parent and being a leader in a podcast from 2024. Ferguson stressed how important it is to be resilient and hopeful when going through the ups and downs of being an entrepreneur. He said, “Creating Nuro lets us speed up some of the really good things that will change our physical environment in the future.”
Giving Back and Looking Ahead
Ferguson is dedicated to robotics in more ways than just Nuro. He set up a scholarship for robotics students at the University of Otago because he wanted to inspire the next generation and get more young New Zealanders into the tech sector. He won a Kea World Class New Zealand Award in 2022 for his work in robotics and his efforts to help his home country.
Nuro is getting ready to grow its business by building a 125,000-square-foot factory near Las Vegas that will make tens of thousands of cars each year. The company’s Nuro Driver™ has driven more than 1.4 million miles without any accidents that were the company’s fault. This makes it a leader in scalable, vehicle-agnostic autonomy solutions. Ferguson’s vision is still clear: to make the world a place where self-driving cars deliver goods without any problems, giving people more time and freedom and making cities safer and more sustainable.
Conclusion
Dave Ferguson‘s story is one of vision, hard work, and new ideas. He went from being a student in New Zealand who was fascinated by a trash can robot to co-founding a robotics company worth billions of dollars. He is changing the way we interact with the physical world, one delivery at a time, through Nuro. As Nuro grows its partnerships and uses its technology, Ferguson’s legacy as a leader in self-driving delivery is just beginning to take shape. He is not only starting a business, but also making a future where robotics makes life better for everyone by focusing on safety, sustainability, and accessibility.
