Lyft, Waymo reach deal to team up for self-driving cars

As the race to bring self-driving vehicles to the public intensifies, two of Silicon Valley’s most prominent players are tying up.

Waymo, the self-driving car unit that operates under Google’s parent company, has signed a deal with the ride-hailing start-up Lyft, according to two people familiar with the agreement who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly. The deal calls for the companies to work together to bring autonomous vehicle technology into the mainstream through pilot projects and product development efforts, these people said.

The deal was confirmed by Lyft and Waymo. “Waymo holds today’s best self-driving technology, and collaborating with them will accelerate our shared vision of improving lives with the world’s best transportation,” a Lyft spokeswoman said in a statement.

A Waymo spokesman said, “Lyft’s vision and commitment to improving the way cities move will help Waymo’s self-driving technology reach more people, in more places.” The partnership highlights the fluid nature of relationships in the self-driving-car sector. From technology companies to automakers to firms that manufacture components, dozens of players are angling for a slice of an autonomous vehicle market that many believe will ultimately be a multibillion-dollar industry. To gain an edge and outmuscle rivals, many of these players are forming alliances — and sometimes shifting them.

The deal between Waymo and Lyft has competitive implications for Uber, the world’s biggest ride-hailing company, which has recently had to confront a spate of workplace and legal problems.

Lyft is a distant No. 2 to Uber among ride-hailing services in the United States, and the two companies are bitter rivals. Waymo is also competing fiercely with Uber in the creation of technology for autonomous cars and is embroiled in a lawsuit over what it says is Uber’s use of stolen Waymo trade secrets to develop such technology.

Details about the deal between Waymo and Lyft were scant. The companies declined to comment on what types of products would be brought to market as a result of it or when the public might see the fruits of the collaboration.

The companies have left hints as to what the partnership could entail. Lyft, for instance, has long said it wants to match its network of passengers and drivers with partners in the transportation industry. Last year, it struck a deal with General Motors, a major Lyft investor, to help with that goal. Under that agreement, the companies plan to test autonomous Chevrolet Bolt vehicles using Lyft’s network with the general public in the next few years.

Waymo has pursued its own partnerships. It is working with Fiat Chrysler on a fleet of minivans and is in talks with Honda about a possible deal that would put Waymo technology in Honda test vehicles. Waymo also recently introduced a pilot program in Phoenix in which consumers can apply to hail self-driving Chrysler minivans and Lexuses for free rides around the city. The company has said it hopes to find new ways through such partnerships to bring its self-driving technology to the general public after nearly a decade of development.

The seeds of the partnership between Waymo and Lyft were planted in discussions last summer, the two people familiar with the deal said. The talks involved Logan Green and John Zimmer, the founders and leaders of Lyft, and John Krafcik, the chief executive of Waymo. The idea of a deal evolved as the executives visited each other’s campuses in the ensuing months.

The partnership indicates that Waymo believes its self-driving-car technology has moved past the research stage and is ready to be applied commercially.

What automakers are doing

Most of the big names — from Mercedes-Benz to Audi, BMW and Hyundai — have begun developing or forming partnerships around self-driving technology. Here are some of the firms who have invested resources to become leaders in autonomous driving:

General Motors

Invested $500 million in Lyft and has announced that it would test self-driving electric taxis on public roads within a year. It bought Cruise Automation for about $1 billion, and is planning to build a development centre in San Francisco.

Ford

Announced a $1 billion investment in Argo AI, an artificial intelligence founded by former Google and Uber employees. Ford plans to have a fully autonomous vehicle in commercial operation for a ride-hailing service by 2021.

Tesla

The Silicon Valley company said its cars would eventually come equipped to be fully autonomous, and has continued to update a controversial Autopilot software option (that was involved in the first fatal autonomous driving accident).

The new entrants: What technology companies are doing

While Google has managed to draw headlines, several technology companies have been looking to enter the car business. Here are some of them:

Google (Alphabet)
 

One of the early attention-getters, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, spun off its autonomous car project into its own company called Waymo, signaling that it’s now past the research phase and is ready to be commercialised.

Apple

The company’s ultimate ambitions remain unclear. While its once-secret effort, code-named Titan, appeared to be shrinking in 2016, it recently received a permit to test vehicles in California.

Uber

The company partnered with automakers to rollout prototype vehicles in Pittsburgh and Tempe, Ariz. It is being sued by Waymo, which claimed that Uber is using stolen intellectual property related to its acquisition of Otto, a start-up founded by a former Google project leader.

©2017 The New York Times News Service