Lyft is planning to launch a fleet of autonomous vehicles powered by Mobileye, an Intel company, as early as 2026, starting in Dallas. The move is part of Lyft's strategy to offer driverless rides to customers through its ride-hailing app. The collaboration with Mobileye will involve integrating Mobileye's self-driving system, Mobileye Drive, into Lyft's platform. While Lyft has not yet disclosed which carmaker it is partnering with for the launch, Mobileye's advanced driver-assistance technology is already integrated into vehicle's from Audi, Volkswagen, Nissan, Ford, General Motors, and more.

The partnership will initially focus on deploying the robotaxis in Dallas before expanding to other markets. The vehicles will be owned and operated by Lyft, with Mobileye providing the autonomous driving technology, including hardware, driving policy, and software. Lyft will also handle the mapping and teleoperations for the vehicles.

Mobileye's CEO, Amnon Shashua, expressed confidence in the scalability of their technology, which has already been tested in cities like New York and Munich. Lyft's co-founder and CEO, Logan Green, highlighted the importance of autonomous vehicles in improving safety and reducing costs for consumers.

The collaboration between Lyft and Mobileye is expected to accelerate the adoption of autonomous vehicles in the ride-hailing industry. It also represents a significant step towards Lyft's goal of a fully autonomous fleet, which could have a transformative impact on urban transportation.

Lyft's move into the autonomous vehicle space reflects a broader trend in the transportation industry, with companies seeking to leverage self-driving technology to enhance efficiency and safety. The launch of robotaxis in Dallas will be a key test of the public's readiness to embrace driverless transportation options. According to TechCrunch, Lyft inevitably wants to kick partnership conversations into gear as its archrival Uber has been snatching up partnerships with other AV companies including Waymo, Wayve, Avride, Serve Robotics, Nuro, Aurora Innovation, Waabi, and others.

The company previously partnered with startups Motional and Argo AI to launch robotaxi services in Las Vegas—initially with a human safety driver behind the wheel—but the plan was to go fully driverless. Motional paused that partnership in May after slashing its workforce, and Argo AI—which Lyft had a stake in—shut down in 2022. Prior to that, Lyft attempted to develop autonomous vehicle technology in-house, as did Uber, but both ended up selling their AV units—Uber to Aurora in December 2020, and Lyft to Toyota's Woven Planet in April 2021.

Jermy Bird, Lyft's executive vice president of driver experience, told TechCrunch that the plan is to scale to thousands of vehicles across multiple cities after Texas, and that the company's goal now is to build solid partnerships both with companies developing AV tech and with those that want to own fleets of autonomous vehicles, which aligns with its asset-light business model. "The rest of the value chain is where we really want to play a role, and that's in fleet management, demand generation, and marketplace."

Source: TechCrunch