Lyft, Uber’s rival in the US is planning to launch a fleet of self-driving cars in San Francisco. This comes as a partnership between Lyft and Drive.ai is announced where Lyft provides the platform for the ride sharing network whilst Drive.ai provides the brains of the self-driving technology.
All rides will still include a Drive.ai safety driver in the car and both parties will work together to ensure that the pilot is done in line with all regulatory obligations. The pilot will focus on 3 key areas, safety (how safe the technology is), quality of passenger experience (how customers would have to communicate with an AI machine) and scale (can the technology scale beyond just the confines of the Bay Area).
This isn’t the first time in which Lyft is partnering with a self-driving technology company. In May, the company announced that they would partner with Waymo, Google’s own self-driving company (now under the umbrella of Alphabet). Uber is also working on similar areas but instead of partnering with other companies, they spent a lot acquiring Otto which led to the lawsuit by Waymo.
Drive.ai is a two-year-old startup which focuses on the brains behind a self-driving car. This includes specialisation in deep learning-based driving software for use in business, government and shared vehicle fleets.
