Lyft to launch Robotaxis with furniture “from 2026”, starting with Dallas
The Co-Hail Lyft giant plans to bring a fully autonomous Robotaxy, fueled by Mobileye, to its “from 2026” application in Dallas, with more markets to follow, Techcrunch learned exclusively.
The news one day occurs before Lyft shared its report on the results of the fourth quarter and the year entirely entirely in 2024, and it coincides with the preparations of Waymo to launch a service of commercial rootaxi in partnership with Uber in Austin And later, Atlanta. Tesla also shared plans to start an autonomous driving operation Austin in June.
Marubeni, a Japanese conglomerate with a fleet management experience, will have and finance the vehicles equipped with Mobileye which will appear on the Lyft carpooling application. While Lyft has not yet revealed its OEM partner for the launch, advanced Mobileye driving assistance technology is already integrated In Audi vehicles, Volkswagen, Nissan, Ford, General Motors, etc.
Lyft did not share the number of vehicles he would launch in Dallas either, but Jeremy Bird, Director of Lyft policy, told Techcrunch that the plan was to go to thousands of vehicles in several cities after the Texas beginnings from Lyft.
The Marubeni partnership is a bit like a non -sequential for Lyft; The company has subsidiaries in almost all industries, food and real estate to agriculture and energy, but has no significant presence in driving or autonomy vehicles.
That said, in recent years, Marubeni has started to compete. In 2021, the The company in partnership with Mobileye And the MOOVIT public transport planning application to launch a demand for demand for Japan. Techcrunch has contacted whether this collaboration is still active.
Mobileye actually served as an intermediary between Lyft and Marubeni, said Bird. And for the business model of Lyft Assess-Light, it is crucial to find a partner to undertake to have the fleet of vehicles.
“Mobileye has technology and the relationship with OEMs, and we have the platform, so it is the property of the fleet which is the large missing room,” Bird in Techcrunch told. “And when you have someone who has experience [fleet management] And the resources and the desire to be a first engine, which changes the game for us. »»
Marubeni will take advantage of Lyft’s Flexdrive Service to help manage his fleet and maintain the use of high assets. Flexdrive is the Lyft service to connect drivers who do not have vehicles with rental cars. Bird says that Lyft’s experience managing fleets – which includes the load, cleaning and maintenance of vehicles, as well as real estate for operations – will greatly contribute to supporting future autonomous rides.
Bird noted that Lyft is in talks with each great autonomy player to bring them to the platform. And Lyft probably wants to launch these conversations into equipment while its main competitor Uber seizes partnerships with other AV companies. Apart from Waymo, Uber announced agreements with Wayve,, Avride,, Serve robotics,, A sole,, Aurora Innovation,, Guarand others.
Apart from its mobileye agreement, Lyft has only announced its intention to launch AVS with May Mobility in Atlanta This year.
Lyft’s slower roller to autonomy is not for lack of trying, however. The company had its share of bad luck in the AV arena.
Lyft had previously associated with Startups Motional and Argo AI for launching Robotaxi services in Las Vegas – initially with a human safety driver while driving, but the plan was to become fully without driver. SO Motional has paused this partnership in May after MisappropriateAnd Argo ai closed its doors in 2022. Lyft had a participation in Argo and took a $ 135.7 million When the company fell back.
Before that, Lyft had tried to develop an internal autonomous vehicle technology. Uber did the same. The two sold their AV units; Uber in Aurora in December 2020, and Lyft to the Planet woven of Toyota in April 2021.
Bird recognized that the wave of AV partnerships “creates an emergency”, but he said that it also pointed out that the deployment of Robotaxis will not be concentrated with a single company.
He said that Lyft’s objective is now to create solid partnerships both with companies developing AV Tech and with companies wishing to have fleets of autonomous vehicles, which aligns with the Lyft Light- business model Light.
“The rest of the value chain is the place where we really want to play a role, and it is in the management of the fleet, the generation of demand and the market,” said Bird.
