Ride-hailing company Lyft says it's set to launch robotaxis powered by Mobileye tech as soon as 2026, starting in Dallas, Texas. The service will subsequently arrive in more cities with thousands of self-driving cabs, notes CEO David Risher.
The company, which operates in hundreds of cities across North America and serves 40 million riders annually, hasn't stated how many autonomous vehicles it will deploy in Dallas, or how driverless rides will be priced.
It's especially keen on making this work in partnership with Japanese business conglomerate Marubeni. "Marubeni is a major global player in fleet ownership," explained Risher, who's been serving as CEO since April 2023. "They manage +900K vehicles through various subsidiaries and joint ventures and have seen year-on-year growth in their B2B/B2C auto financing business. They're aiming to be leaders in the emerging autonomous vehicle space, and we look forward to working together."
Indeed, Marubeni has a stake in North American vehicle fleet company Wheels, along with a bunch of others. Lyft believes that "it’ll take financial partnership, fleet-management excellence and 24/7 demand to commercialize them at scale."
Lyft has worked with several autonomous vehicle tech companies in the past. In 2022, it offered driverless rides in Austin with Argo AI, and with Motional in Las Vegas. Those two projects flamed out the same year.
Last November, Lyft teamed up with self-driving tech firms Mobileye (which is owned by Intel), May Mobility, and Nexar to pick up where it left off.
Marubeni will own the autonomous vehicles on Lyft's network, and leverage the latter's Flexdrive fleet management service to maintain the cars.
The news follows Tesla's January announcement about getting robotaxis on the road by June of this year. At the same time, Waymo is also upping the ante with self-driving cabs, with plans to expand beyond Los Angeles into Atlanta, Austin, and 10 more cities through the year.
Promotional messages about these Waymo cabs have already begun showing up on Uber's app for folks in Austin. TechCrunch notes the rival ride-hailing service has also inked deals with other autonomous vehicle companies including Wayve and Aurora Innovation. Clearly, Lyft will have some catching up to do next year.
Source: David Risher via X