The ride-hailing platform, Lyft, is expanding its futuristic experiences after unveiling its latest partnerships with three autonomous vehicle companies to deliver more options for its customers come next year. This means that Lyft is also looking into having a more pronounced presence in the autonomous vehicle industry, which will be available for customers to book by 2025.
Lyft also revealed that it will gradually debut the rides with self-driving cars and will not offer them as a one-off for its customers. It will focus on launching in specific cities in the country before making them widely accessible.
Lyft Expands Autonomous Rides With Three Partners
Amid Lyft's latest Q3 2024 report, the company announced in a press release that it has now secured a new round of autonomous partnerships in the industry, combining it with its ride-hailing services. This massive shift by Lyft into the autonomous vehicle (AV) sector formed partnerships across three companies, including Mobileye, May Mobility and Nexar.
Lyft first announced its partnership with Mobileye, which will help them deliver the new partner's self-driving technology to the ride-share giant's "scaled rideshare platform" for all fleet operators to apply to their vehicles.
On the other hand, Lyft and May Mobility's partnership will take advantage of its autonomous vehicles with a fleet of Toyota Sienna minivans. Additionally, Lyft's partnership with Nexar will help improve its autonomous plans by using the partner company's collected data, including video footage, for future developments and improvements.
Autonomous Lyft Rides Are Coming This 2025
This new trio of partnerships will expand Lyft's autonomous ride-hailing plans coming this 2025, and the company is planning to gradually make it available for customers to access and enjoy a driverless experience.
Lyft noted that its partnership with May Mobility will initially launch the experience in Atlanta, Ga., next year. Lyft also revealed that it will scale the autonomous rides to more cities and regions over time.
Autonomous Vehicles and Ride Hailing
Autonomous vehicles are already ruling the city streets in select regions in the country after prominent companies like Alphabet and General Motors made their debut in San Francisco, ushering in a new era of mobility. These companies delivered Waymo and Cruise, and they are among the pioneers of self-driving ride-hailing services in the U.S., with their fair share of controversies and triumphs over the years.
However, other companies are looking to get their share of the market that no longer require a driver to take passengers from one point to another, using only the app to dictate the trip. That being said, Lyft's top rival in the country, Uber, previously announced its massive partnership with Waymo to deliver autonomous rides as part of its service, expanding more of both's reach.
Currently, the autonomous vehicle sector is still skating on thin ice after facing issues with the technology that has since seen accidents and different types of malfunctions, especially for the two renowned platforms. However, this is one way to go forward with ride-hailing, and Lyft is jumping into the scene with its promising partnerships and soon offering the experience to Americans by 2025.
