Lyft is working with May Mobility and Mobileye to integrate autonomous vehicles into the app

Apparently, Lyft is hoping to compete with Uber's string of autonomous vehicle partnerships.

Lyft announced three separate partnerships on Wednesday — with startup May Mobility, automated driving company Mobileye and smart dashcam company Nexar — all aimed at gaining a foothold in the emerging autonomous vehicle market.

In the announcement, the ride-hailing company said it has signed a deal with May Mobility to launch autonomous vehicles in Atlanta through the Lyft app starting in 2025. Lyft also announced a partnership with Intel-owned Mobileye that will enable certain AV technology-equipped vehicles to use the ride-hailing app, as well as a data sharing agreement with Nexar that will give OEMs and operators better insights for autonomous driving system training should.

This isn't the first time Lyft has dabbled in autonomous vehicles. The company previously offered a robotaxi service through a partnership with Motional in Las Vegas – always with a human safety driver behind the wheel. A similar agreement occurred in Austin and Miami with Argo AI. However, Motional paused this partnership in May after the company reduced its workforce, and Argo AI closed in 2022. Lyft had a stake in Argo and suffered a $135.7 million loss when the company collapsed.

Uber, meanwhile, has been busy inking deals with leading AV companies in the robotaxi, delivery and freight industries, including Waymo, Cruise, Avride, Serve Robotics, Aurora Innovation, Waabi and more.

May Mobility + Lyft, from 2025

May Mobility has made a name for itself with the introduction of autonomous micro-transit services, especially in geofenced areas around the USA. The startup's shuttles operate within campuses and to designated stops along fixed routes in cities such as Ann Arbor, Michigan, Arlington, Virginia and Peachtree Corners Atlanta, Miami and Sun City, Arizona. In May 2023, May Mobility launched an on-demand service in Grand Rapids, Michigan in partnership with Via.

“Partnering with Lyft will open up new markets for us and bring greater mobility to more people, faster,” May Mobility co-founder and CEO Edwin Olson said in a statement.

The multi-year Lyft partnership is May's first foray into the ride-hail space. May Mobility and Lyft have not said when the AVs will be deployed, how many of May's Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS vehicles will hit the road, or whether May will offer shared rides and shuttles or individual on-demand transit services.

In a statement, May noted that initial deployments will feature safety drivers in the front seat and plans to move to fully driverless vehicles over time.

Creating a “Lyft Ready” Mobileye Network

Mobileye offers self-driving technology across the spectrum of autonomy, from Level 2 advanced driver assistance systems to Level 4 fully autonomous systems. Mobileye Drive, the company's L4 system, includes everything from the self-driving software to the sensor stack to a cloud infrastructure with a digital twin of the world.

“The next step for us is to use this Mobileye Drive Cloud, or Demand Gateway as we call it, to connect to the various ride-hailing, ride-pooling and public transportation networks in the world,” says Christian Lichtmannecker, head of AV in Mobileye's Mobility-as-a-Service business development unit, told TechCrunch.

In other words, any vehicle fleet that already has Mobileye Drive on board – which today includes certain models from Volkswagen, Schaeffler and Benteler Holon – will be able to connect to the Lyft network in the future. Lichtmannecker said this allows both small and large fleet operators seamless access to Lyft's platform and driver network.

“Lyft’s goal is to connect AVs, drivers, riders and partners to create new opportunities for everyone,” Lyft CEO David Risher said in a statement. “Our ride-sharing network will continue to evolve as millions of people will have the opportunity to earn billions of dollars, whether they choose to drive, operate their AV vehicles, or both.”

Neither Lyft nor Mobileye said when or where the first Mobileye-powered vehicles would appear in the Lyft app, but Lichtmannecker noted that the two are in discussions with operational and OEM partners today.

Mobileye is testing its Drive technology in Austin, Detroit and Orlando. The company is also testing how its technology handles extreme weather conditions in Norway, Germany and Israel. Mobileye is currently testing with a safety driver behind the wheel and plans to remove the driver once the safety of its technology is validated.

We bring insights from Nexar's smart dashcam to AV development

Nexar has in recent years used video data from its line of smart dash cameras to scale a digital twin service that it sells to automakers and cities.

Now Nexar and Lyft believe they can provide OEMs and AV companies with even greater insight by joining forces.

The two companies will combine Nexar's more than 45 petabytes of real-world footage, spanning 200 million monthly miles driven, with Lyft's historical and freshly anonymized and aggregated market data to create “a comprehensive and robust data set for the development of AV technology.” to create.

Lyft and Nexar did not share how they plan to split revenue under this partnership. The companies also didn't say whether Lyft will offer Nexar dash cameras to Lyft drivers at a discount or even give drivers a discount for collecting data on the company's behalf, although a Nexar spokesman said drivers must agree to participate.

The deal comes just a few months after Zach Greenberger left his role as chief business officer at Lyft to become CEO of Nexar.