Dive Brief:
- Ride-hail providers Uber and Lyft are driving deeper into the realm of autonomous vehicles. The companies’ leaders described new partnerships with technology and robotaxi companies during recent investor events.
- Lyft will add AVs to its platform in Atlanta through a collaboration with May Mobility. The company also announced partnerships with autonomous and advanced driver assistance company Mobileye, along with Nexar, whose dashboard cameras provide video recordings that can contribute to better data for AV research.
- Uber customers will be able to select a Cruise robotaxi beginning next year, and the company is expanding its partnership with Waymo in Austin, Texas, and Atlanta. Uber has 14 different AV partnerships, many of which it plans to expand both in the U.S. and globally, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on the company’s Oct. 31 earnings call. The CEO added that “you will see expansions with many of our other autonomous partners in domestic and international markets on the AV side.”
Dive Insight:
Perhaps spurred by Tesla’s Oct. 10 robotaxi debut and CEO Elon Musk’s promise to begin driverless tests of some of its vehicles as robotaxis in California and Texas next year, Uber and Lyft leaders focused on their AV strategies at recent investor events.
Khosrowshahi said on the earnings call that Uber’s experience with Waymo is “absolutely terrific” but that the real test of their partnership will come when they expand operations in Austin and Atlanta. “You’re going to get Waymos in the hundreds in those markets,” he said.
The Uber CEO expects to see a growing ecosystem of autonomous partners and more deployments of robotaxis on the Uber network outside the U.S. next year. “Stay tuned, you're going to see more launches coming up,” he said.
Lyft CEO David Risher said on the company’s Nov. 6 earnings call that it has provided about 130,000 autonomous rides so far, mainly in Las Vegas where Lyft partners with Motional. He added that the company is looking at the San Francisco market “quite closely.” Waymo operates driverless robotaxis in San Francisco, while Zoox is testing its vehicles there and Cruise looks to return after having its California permit suspended in 2023.
Risher sees AVs as a way to bring additional supplies of ride-hailing vehicles to each market while complementing human-driven vehicles. “At Lyft, we envision a robust future that brings together human drivers and autonomous vehicles in an always-on transportation network,” he said.
Robotaxis will face multiple regulatory agendas across the federal, state and city level, said Lyft’s chief financial officer, Erin Brewer, speaking with RBC Capital’s internet equity analyst Brad Erickson on a Nov. 19 conference call. “It's rational to think that all of those actors will absolutely have a voice as we think about broader adoption, safety profiles, regulatory constraints within those jurisdictions going forward,” Brewer said.
Brewer, Risher and Khosrowshahi all noted that robotaxi rides come with a premium price compared with their more popular options such as Uber X. “It's a very bespoke experience right now,” Risher said.
