According to foreign media reports, American taxi software company Lyft will cooperate with Mobileye, a driverless technology supplier spin-off from Intel, and will launch a driverless taxi service in Dallas, USA as early as 2026. This further expands the partnership that was first announced in November last year.
Lyft CEO David Risher recently posted on social media platform X that Lyft users in Dallas, Texas will be able to book self-driving cars powered by Mobileye technology next year, which belongs to Marubeni, a Tokyo-based automotive and fleet financing company. . A Lyft spokesperson said that its self-driving car platform has entered the “advanced planning stage to be finalized” and the company plans to promote self-driving taxis to more cities in the future.
Risher mentioned on the social media platform that Marubeni manages more than 900,000 vehicles through multiple subsidiaries and joint ventures, and its auto finance business has achieved year by year. He also added that Marubeni will also leverage the expertise of Flexdrive Services LLC, Lyft’s car rental and fleet division, “to ensure the fullest value of the vehicle.”
Risher also said, “The more self-driving cars there are, the bigger the taxi service market will expand. This is part of the Lyft service and connectivity commitment and we are pleased that Marubeni will be able to walk hand in hand with us.”
It is expected that this cooperation will promote the rapid development of Lyft in the field of autonomous driving travel. In the future, as more cities introduce driverless taxis, it is expected to bring users a new travel experience.
As soon as the news came out, after the New York stock market opened on February 10, Lyft’s stock price rose by 7.2%; Mobileye’s stock price rose by as much as 18%, and financial company Bank of America Securities raised its stock rating.
In fact, this is not Lyft’s first entry into the field of autonomous driving. Last November, Lyft also announced plans to deploy a batch of autonomous Toyota Senna small vans starting in 2025 with Toyota-backed startup May Mobility.
However, Lyft is also facing fierce competition in the driverless taxi market. Its competitor Uber has cooperated with Waymo LLC, an autonomous driving technology company under Google’s parent company Alphabet, to provide driverless driving in Phoenix, Arizona, since October 2023. Taxi service, the two companies will also launch driverless taxi services in Austin in March this year and in Atlanta this summer. Electric car giant Tesla also said it plans to launch its first self-driving car service in Austin in June this year.