Lyft, Inc. today announced multiple autonomous vehicle (AV) partnerships in the company’s latest attempt to connect its user community with future AV rides in its app.

With a new Mobileye deal, Lyft will make its rideshare platform available to all vehicles with Mobileye’s self-driving technology. Vehicles equipped with Mobileye Drive technology will hit the road “Lyft-ready”—giving small and large fleet operators access to Lyft’s platform and network of riders to optimize their vehicles.

Beyond pioneering the new distribution channel for AVs through its Mobileye alliance, Lyft is solving for other key parts of the AV value chain with May Mobility and Nexar.

May Mobility will directly deploy AVs to the Lyft platform in Atlanta, where riders can be matched with a fleet of autonomous Toyota Sienna minivans equipped with May Mobility’s autonomous technology, a deployment that Lyft and May Mobility aim to scale over time across multiple markets.

With Nexar, Lyft will explore ways to harness the power of aggregated, anonymized marketplace and fleet data to help OEMs and AV companies build better and safer autonomous technology.

“We’re thrilled to work with Mobileye, May Mobility, and Nexar to build the autonomous future together, with more partnerships to follow,” said David Risher, CEO of Lyft. “Lyft’s aim is to connect AVs, drivers, riders, and partners to create new opportunities for all. Our rideshare network will continue to evolve as millions of people will have the opportunity to earn billions of dollars whether they choose to drive, put their AVs into service, or both.”

The rideshare company’s autonomy efforts have been in fits and starts, selling its Level 5 self-driving vehicle division to Toyota’s Woven Planet in July 2021, and announcing in August 2022 a partnership with Motional to launch a Hyundai Ioniq 5-based robotaxi for fully driverless ride-hail operation, on the Lyft network in Las Vegas in 2023.

Now it says its rideshare network offers a fast way for AVs to scale and for partners to monetize their technology. The platform gives AV partners access to 40 million riders annually and provides fleet-management capabilities that streamline on-boarding, off-boarding, and vehicle servicing. Its “Lyft-ready” model is a turnkey solution, empowering partners to seamlessly deploy AVs to Lyft’s marketplace, effectively commercialize these deployments, and maximize their vehicle utilization.

 

Mobileye Drive vehicles

Using the latest advancements in AI for autonomy, Mobileye provides technology into an ecosystem of purpose-built vehicle manufacturers for purchase by vehicle fleet operators and transportation service providers. The company intends to leverage Lyft’s network and reputation as a leading transportation network in North America to provide a demand platform for Mobileye Drive-based AV fleets.

The objective is for future AV operators who want to deploy and manage large-scale fleets in various metropolitan areas in North America to purchase Mobileye Drive-equipped, Lyft-ready vehicles from vehicle builders, access Lyft’s rider demand, and optimize utilization and profitability of their fleets.

The partners also plan to use Mobileye’s new cloud-based AV demand technology, which connects Mobileye Drive-equipped vehicles with AV fleet operators. Through Mobileye’s turnkey AV ecosystem and Lyft’s suite of AV Partner APIs, fleets of AVs are expected to be monetized, giving Lyft users faster and broader availability of AVs.

“Mobileye’s full-stack technology is an important part of getting autonomous fleets Lyft-ready,” said Risher. “We’re laser-focused on building a platform where fleet owners will be proud to put their assets to work.

He calls Mobileye an important strategic partner “on the road to an autonomous future.”

“Cooperating with leading mobility providers and operators are essential steps to bring autonomous mobility services to reality,” said Prof. Amnon Shashua, President and CEO of Mobileye. “Enabling Mobileye Drive with Lyft’s network of 40 million annual riders in North America would allow our AV customers to reach new markets and geographies with autonomous services and provide the benefits of the technology through a sustainable business.”

The planned joint effort marks another milestone in Mobileye’s ambition to bring autonomous mobility to passengers around the world. Working with transportation network providers, vehicle operators, and vehicle manufacturers, Mobileye has provided its AV technology to various mobility-as-a-service projects in Europe and North America. Mobileye Drive-equipped vehicles are currently piloted with several mobility operators in Germany, Norway, Croatia, and the U.S.

 

May Mobility AVs on Lyft platform

The multi-year May Mobility and Lyft partnership involves plans to launch AVs in the Lyft app, with the first deployment in Atlanta in 2025. The partnership with Lyft marks May Mobility’s entrance into the rideshare industry, expanding its approach to autonomous transportation and providing new options for riders seeking efficient and convenient mobility solutions.

“Partnering with Lyft will open up new markets for us to operate in, granting greater mobility to more people, more quickly,” said Edwin Olson, Co-founder and CEO of May Mobility. “We will continue to deliver the valuable service our riders love as we work with Lyft to make our cities better places to live.”

As May Mobility deploys AV fleets on the Lyft network, the companies will work with local governments and communities to encourage a smooth expansion of AV service that aims to benefit riders and cities. In the months ahead, the partners will initiate planning for the first deployment, including service areas, hours of operation, and fleet size. Initial deployments will use safety operators and then transition to driver-out operations over time.

“We’re excited to welcome May Mobility as a new autonomous partner,” said Jeremy Bird, EVP of Driver Experience at Lyft. “At Lyft, we’re making it simple for partners to plug their assets into our network and take advantage of our marketplace engine.”

Each May Mobility vehicle is equipped with its patented MPDM (Multi-Policy Decision Making) technology that leverages artificial intelligence to interpret data in real-time, continuously learning and adapting to new, complex, and unpredictable driving conditions to help create a safer, more comfortable ride.

 

Nexar AI platform integration

Lyft plans to leverage Nexar’s vast, cutting-edge video telematics offering to create data-driven solutions aimed at accelerating the deployment of AV technologies. Nexar has leveraged its dash-cam business to develop an AI platform that takes advantage of the “largest and freshest” dataset from its swarm of crowd-sourced connected AI cameras to power live HD mapping, AV training, and validation applications.

“Nexar’s collaboration with Lyft is a pivotal moment in our journey to accelerate the future of autonomous driving,” said Eran Shir, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of Nexar. “By combining Nexar’s unparalleled video data capabilities with Lyft’s vast rideshare network, we are setting a new standard for AV training and real-world driving insights.”

The collaboration will bring Nexar’s extensive video data and insights—which includes over 45 petabytes of real-world footage, spanning 200 million miles driven monthly, with over 5 trillion images and over 59 million videos—with anonymized and aggregated Lyft marketplace data to create a comprehensive and robust dataset for AV technology development.

“Data is the bedrock of a safe and scalable autonomous future,” concluded Bird. “Better data enables better outcomes, and we’re looking forward to working with Nexar’s team to create rideshare-specific datasets for our AV partners. This partnership is part of our work to make Lyft’s network the best way to commercialize AVs at scale and empowers us to use our rideshare expertise to push the entire industry forward.”