Lyft is preparing to enter the increasingly competitive robotaxi arena. The ride-hailing company announced on Friday that it will begin offering self-driving car rides starting this summer, initially in Atlanta.
The rollout will be conducted in collaboration with May Mobility, an autonomous vehicle company. May Mobility’s self-driving technology will be integrated into Toyota Sienna minivans for the service.
A Lyft spokesperson also indicated that Dallas will be the next city to receive the self-driving vehicle service. Lyft plans to deploy autonomous vehicles in Dallas in partnership with Mobileye and Marubeni, targeting a launch as early as next year, with the goal of “thousands of vehicles and more cities to follow.”
In a statement released on Thursday, Jeremy Bird, Lyft’s executive vice president of driver experience, suggested the new venture could create income opportunities for Lyft drivers. He proposed drivers could earn money by purchasing their own AVs.
“Drivers today come to the Lyft platform for many reasons, but one of the main draws is the flexibility it offers,” Bird wrote. “The only limit is their own schedule, since they need to be available to drive. This is a very real hurdle today, but over time, personally-owned AVs will remove even this limit — allowing people to earn while they are working another job, or taking care of their families, or sleeping.”
Robotaxis utilizing self-driving technology are currently operating in at least four U.S. cities and several locations abroad. Major tech corporations are vying for dominance in what analysts project could become a multibillion- or even trillion-dollar market. Alphabet’s Waymo, Tesla, and Amazon are all actively developing self-driving car technology, much of which is already integrated into ride-sharing fleets.
Uber, for instance, partnered with Waymo in October 2023 to begin offering self-driving rides in Phoenix. Since then, Uber has expanded its AV services to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Austin, Texas, with intentions to extend to Miami in 2026.
Despite the expanding presence of AVs, some ride-share users remain cautious about the new technology. A 2023 survey by the American Automobile Association found that 68% of drivers express concerns about autonomous vehicles. Incidents involving Waymo vehicles have included a car spinning in circles and a crash into a stationary pole. Despite these concerns, Waymo provides around 200,000 self-driving taxi rides each week, according to Forbes.
“I’m not a neutral observer. I’m rooting for AVs, not just as a consumer, but because I think they’ll be great for Lyft, as well as the riders and drivers on our platform,” Lyft CEO David Risher wrote in a February statement. “AVs grow the overall rideshare market by providing a safe, engaging, novel mode of transportation, making it even easier for people to get out and about.”
