Ride-hail giant Lyft plans to bring fully autonomous robotaxis, powered by Mobileye, to its app “as soon as 2026” in Dallas, with more markets to follow, TechCrunch has exclusively learned.
The news comes a day before Lyft reports its fourth-quarter financial results, coinciding with Waymo’s preparations to launch a commercial robotaxi service with Uber in Austin and, later, Atlanta. Tesla has also shared plans to start an autonomous ride-hail operation in Austin in June.
Marubeni, a Japanese conglomerate with experience managing fleets, will own and finance the Mobileye-equipped vehicles that will show up on Lyft’s ride-hailing app. While Lyft has not yet disclosed which carmaker it is partnering with for the launch, Mobileye’s advanced driver assistance technology is already integrated into vehicles from Audi, Volkswagen, Nissan, Ford, General Motors, and more.
Lyft also didn’t share how many vehicles it would launch in Dallas to start, but Jeremy Bird, Lyft’s executive vice president of driver experience, told TechCrunch that the plan is to scale to thousands of vehicles across multiple cities after the Texas debut.
The Marubeni partnership is a non sequitur for Lyft: the Japanese company owns subsidiaries across almost every industry, from food and real estate to agriculture and energy, but doesn’t have a large presence in ride-hail or autonomous vehicles.
That said, over the past few years, Marubeni has begun to dabble. In 2021, the company partnered with Mobileye and transit planning app Moovit to launch an on-demand mobility service in Japan. TechCrunch has reached out to learn if that collaboration is still active.
Mobileye served as the intermediary between Lyft and Marubeni, said Bird. For Lyft’s asset-light business model, finding a partner to commit to owning the fleet is crucial.
“Mobileye’s got the technology and the relationship with the OEMs, and we have the platform, so it’s the ownership of the fleet that’s the big missing piece,” Bird told TechCrunch. “And when you have somebody that has experience in [fleet management] and the resources and the willingness to be a first-mover, that changes the game for us.”
Marubeni will leverage Lyft’s Flexdrive service to help manage its fleet and keep asset utilization high. Flexdrive connects drivers who don’t own vehicles with car renters. Bird said Lyft’s experience managing fleets – which includes charging, cleaning, and maintaining the vehicles, as well as real estate for operations – will go a long way towards supporting future autonomous rides.
See here and here for the most recent posts on the topic of the robotaxi invasion. Tesla and Uber/Waymo have focused on Austin, while Lyft is taking its first steps in Dallas. Outside of the short-lived Cruise experience, Houston has been on the outside looking in. On the one hand I certainly don’t mind that other cities get to be the guinea pigs, and on the other hand I wonder why that is.
This also provides another answer to my question about how existing rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft would change their business models in the transition from an all human-driven fleet to one that is at least partially autonomous. Someone else will indeed own the cars, while Uber and Lyft retreat to being primarily technology companies. We’ll see how they try to differentiate themselves. And, you know, just how much demand there is for this kind of thing. Reuters, The Verge, and Spectrum News have more.