Lyft and Drive.ai haven’t announced certain key features about the pilot program like when it will begin, how long it will run, how drivers will be selected, or how the time of day, climate, and location will decide when to deploy the AV but the new setting provides an opening for Lyft to explore how it could give this new way of going into its existing service, and ensure its place in the future of transport. “We really want to know, what are all the parts that need to come into place?” says Taggart Matthiesen, Lyft’s product chief. For Drive.ai, a two-year-old self-driving start-up, it’s a lot to test out its tech and see how existing customers interact with its product. “We’re thrilled to utilize Lyft’s network of customers,” says Carol Reiley, Drive.ai’s co-founder, and president.
To start, the show will include about a dozen AVs (drawn from Drive.ai’s mixed fleet of Lincoln MKZ and Audi A4 sedans), but that figure will grow as the business starts spending the $50 million it lately raised in a Series B funding cycle led by VC firm New Enterprise Associates. Both groups will collect data from customers mostly through in-app reviews about their occurrence, in the hopes of making sure they’re happy, or at least not terrified.
Drive.ai isn’t the first independent driving developer to start testing with real live clients. Uber started a pilot program in Pittsburgh last year, which it has as expanded to Tempe, Arizona. Google spinoff Waymo started 100 self-driving Chrysler minivans in Phoenix in April. Nutonomy, a startup that formed out of MIT, is testing cars in Singapore, via a partnership with ride hailing company Grab. Last month, Cruise, a GM-owned company, launched a robo-taxi service in San Francisco for its individual employees.
Drive.ai also isn’t the first independent driving developer to associate with Lyft. The company published in January 2016 it would work with General Motors to produce self-driving cars. It also caught up with Waymo and landed a $25 million investment, plus a line of cars for self-driving testing from Jaguar Land Rover. In June, the Uber rival partnered with Nutonomy. And in July, it announced it is developing its own self-driving software and hardware.
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