Lyft is reportedly aiming to bring autonomous robotaxis to its app as soon as next year.
The service would launch first in Dallas with additional markets to follow, TechCrunch reported Monday (Feb. 10), citing comments from a company executive.
As the report noted, the news coincides with Lyft’s upcoming earnings, rival Uber’s plans to launch a commercial robotaxi service in Austin and Atlanta with Waymo, and Tesla’s plans to launch an autonomous ride-hailing operation in Austin in June.
According to the report, Marubeni, a Japanese company with fleet management experience, will own and finance the vehicles, which will be equipped with technology from self-driving firm Mobileye. Although Lyft has yet to say which carmaker it is working with on the project, Mobileye’s tech is already integrated into vehicles from several carmakers, including Ford, GM, Audi, Nissan and Volkswagen, the report added.
It’s also not known how many vehicles Lyft plans to launch in Dallas to start, but Jeremy Bird, the company’s executive vice president of driver experience, told TechCrunch that the goal is to scale to thousands of vehicles across multiple cities following the Texas roll out.
He added that Mobileye acted as the go-between for Lyft and Marubeni, noting that finding a partner who’d agree to own the fleet was critical for an “asset-light” company like Lyft.
“Mobileye’s got the technology and the relationship with the OEMs, and we have the platform, so it’s the ownership of the fleet that’s the big missing piece,” Bird told TechCrunch. “And when you have somebody that has experience in [fleet management] and the resources and the willingness to be a first-mover, that changes the game for us.”
The news comes days after Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he views autonomous vehicles (AVs) as a $1 trillion opportunity in the U.S., one that his company is uniquely positioned to capitalize upon.
“Naturally, investors are debating whether AVs pose a risk or present a massive opportunity for Uber,” Khosrowshahi said during an earnings call.
“Based on our deep engagement with AV technology developers, auto OEMs, and other experts and technologists in the ecosystem, I am more confident than ever that Uber is uniquely positioned to capture the $1 trillion-plus opportunity that autonomy will unlock in the U.S. alone. Even as we see AV technology advancing, we expect AV commercialization will take significantly longer.”
However this all plays out, PYMNTS wrote last year, the payment process needs to be integrated into ride-hailing for robotaxis to be widely adopted.
“Users expect a frictionless, cashless payment system, similar to the embedded experience they enjoy across with current ride-hailing platforms,” that report said.
