-Within the next eight years, executives from the ride-hailing service Lyft say, they’ll be delivering a billion rides per year. But those will all be in autonomous vehicles. Considering that such vehicles aren’t even deployed on the road right now, aside from pilot projects, that’s an ambitious vision for such a tight timeframe. Lyft has taken steps toward making it happen, though, announcing plans to build its own autonomous technology at a new lab located in Palo Alto, California.
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The new self-driving division will consist of hundreds of employees dedicated to creating a complete self-driving software and hardware kit that can be integrated into vehicles provided by partners. Lyft already has inked partnership deals with the likes of Waymo, nuTonomy, General Motors, and Jaguar Land Rover.
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Should its efforts to develop the technology prove successful, Lyft might have an edge in the marketplace because it could provide both software and a massive network of riders, while partnering on vehicle production. This development was announced while the company’s chief rival in the ride-hailing business, Uber, struggles to advance its own self-driving tech and contends with a lawsuit over trade secrets that were allegedly stolen from Waymo.
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–– Sam Abuelsamid, Navigant Research
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Lyft is embarking on this in-house solution years behind Uber, Waymo, and many others. With so many companies both large and small chasing advances on the software side of autonomous vehicles, this development is a bit of a head scratcher, said Sam Abuelsamid, senior research analyst with Navigant Research’s Transportation Efficiencies program.
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“When you look at how many players there are in this space, between OEMs and big suppliers and Waymo and Apple, and a dozen of these three-, four-, five-person startups in Silicon Valley popping up doing this stuff, I really don’t know what Lyft thinks it can add,” he said. “Unless they’re either acquiring someone or have acquired someone, they’d have to be starting from scratch at this point. I think Lyft is big enough to do that, but I’m not sure what the business case is for them to do this part of it.”
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Perhaps more than most others, Lyft seemingly has laid the groundwork for deploying autonomous vehicles among a varied fleet. With General Motors using Chevrolet Bolts for its autonomous efforts and nuTonomy using Renault Zoes, Lyft users could hail vehicles designed for one to two passengers. With Waymo, Lyft could dispatch minivans, and with Jaguar Land Rover, it could appeal to users seeking a premium in-cabin experience.
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Sensors can be mounted on these cars to collect location information that helps Lyft build high-definition maps for autonomous driving, and the sheer size of the company’s network could help it develop the know-how to navigate roads around the world at a rapid pace.
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But Lyft says it is not just building ride-hailing apps, high-def maps, or even self-driving systems for autonomous cars. It’s building an urban transportation ecosystem that’s predicated on shared, autonomous vehicles. Lyft makes no secret about its eagerness to hasten the demise of personal car ownership and to reshape urban landscapes. Speaking at the Automated Vehicles Symposium in San Francisco recently, Joseph Okpaku, Lyft’s vice president of government relations, said the company expects the majority of its rides to be given in autonomous vehicles within the next five years and added that car ownership will decline as mobility options continue to grow.
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“We’re very excited to see the autonomous-vehicle technology’s ability to reduce vehicle-miles traveled and the comfort people will have in getting rid of their cars,” he said. “It will let us take a whole new look at our cities and urban planning. We’re hoping—and, frankly, pushing—things like adjusted pricing and smart lanes, and that’s a strong part of our vision for the next 10 to 20 years for our intended deployment and rollout of autonomous-vehicle platforms.”
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- Lyft Pairs with NuTonomy to Figure Out How Riders Hail Self-Driving Cars
- Tech Brands and Ride Sharing Could Worsen Car-Sales Hangover
- Lyft President: Car Ownership Will End in Cities within Ten Years
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As much as Lyft’s vision tilts toward driverless cars, the company acknowledged that human drivers will always play some role in moving riders around cities. Lyft said that it will “always” operate a mixed network that provides rides from both human-driven and self-driving cars. When a rider requests a Lyft along a route that a self-driving vehicle can complete—likely in a geofenced area—the company’s algorithm would dispatch an autonomous vehicle. If a rider intended to go somewhere that an autonomous vehicle wasn’t yet ready to navigate, a human driver could respond.
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