Lyft is partnering with May Mobility, Mobileye to bring autonomous vehicles to the app

It appears that Lyft is hoping to catch up to Uber’s series of autonomous car partnerships.

Lyft announced Wednesday three separate partnerships — with startup May Mobility, self-driving car company Mobileye and smart dashcam company Nexar — all aimed at establishing the self-driving car market.

In the announcement, the ride-hailing company said it has signed an agreement with May Mobility to introduce autonomous vehicles to the Lyft app starting in Atlanta in 2025. Lyft also announced a partnership with Intel-owned Mobileye that will enable certain vehicles equipped with AV tech. to enter into a ride-hailing app and data sharing agreement with Nexar designed to provide OEMs and operators with better data for training autonomous driving systems.

This isn’t Lyft’s first foray into self-driving cars. The company previously offered a robotaxi service – always with a human safety driver behind the wheel – in Las Vegas in partnership with Motional. It had a similar deal in Austin and Miami with Argo AI. However, Motional ended that partnership in May after downsizing its workforce, and Argo AI closed in 2022. Lyft had a stake in Argo, and received $135.7 million when the company folded.

Uber, meanwhile, has been busy snagging deals with top AV companies across the robotics, delivery, and logistics sectors, including Waymo, Cruise, Avride, Serve Robotics, Aurora Innovation, Waabi, and more.

May Mobility + Lyft, starting in 2025

May Mobility has made a name for itself by providing independent public transportation services especially in affected areas around the US The startup shuttles operate within campuses and at stops on fixed routes in cities such as Ann Arbor, Michigan, Arlington, Virginia, Peachtree Corners in. Atlanta, Miami, and Sun City, Arizona. In May 2023, May Mobility launched an on-demand service in Grand Rapids, Michigan in partnership with Via.

“Partnering with Lyft will open up new markets for us to serve, giving more people mobility, faster,” said Edwin Olson, founder and CEO of May Mobility, in a statement.

Lyft’s multi-year partnership is May’s first foray into ride-hail. May Mobility and Lyft did not say when the AVs will be used, how many May Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS vehicles will hit the roads, or whether May will offer shared rides or shuttles, or individual rides if needed.

In a statement, May noted that the first deployment will use safety drivers in the front seats, with plans to transition to fully driverless over time.

Creating a ‘Lyft-ready’ Mobileye network

Mobileye provides self-driving technology across the spectrum of autonomy, from advanced Level 2 driver assistance systems to Level 4 autonomous systems. Mobileye Drive, the company’s L4 system, consists of everything from self-driving software to a sensor stack to a twin cloud infrastructure of the digital world.

“The next step for us is to use the Mobileye Drive cloud, or the help-seeking portal as we call it, to connect with the different public transport systems of the world,” said Christian Lichtmannecker, the head of the organization. AV in Mobileye’s Mobility-as-a-Service business development unit, told TechCrunch.

In other words, any cars that already have Mobileye Drive on board – today that includes some Volkswagen, Schaeffler, and Benteler Holon models – will be able to connect to the Lyft network in the future. Lichtmannecker said this allows both small and large fleet operators to have seamless access to Lyft’s platform and passenger network.

“Lyft’s mission is to connect AVs, drivers, passengers, and partners to create new opportunities for all,” Lyft CEO David Risher said in a statement. “Our rideshare network will continue to evolve as millions of people will have the opportunity to earn billions of dollars whether they choose to drive, service their AVs, or both.”

Neither Lyft nor Mobileye are sharing when the first Mobileye-enabled cars will appear on the Lyft app, but Lichtmannecker noted that the two are in discussions with their partners and OEM partners today.

Mobileye is testing its Drive technology in Austin, Detroit, and Orlando, Florida. The company is also testing how its technology copes with extreme weather conditions in Norway, Germany and Israel. Mobileye is currently testing a safe driver behind the wheel, and plans to release the driver once it confirms the safety of its technology.

Bringing Nexar smart dashcam insights to AV development

Nexar has for the past few years used video data from its line of smart dashcams to scale the digital twin service it sells to automotive and city OEMs.

Now, Nexar and Lyft think that by joining forces, they will be able to provide OEMs and AV companies with an even better experience.

The two companies will pair Nexar’s more than 45 petabytes of real-world footage covering 200 million miles driven every month with Lyft’s newly anonymized and aggregated market data to create a “comprehensive and robust dataset for AV technology development.”

Lyft and Nexar did not share how they plan to share revenue from the partnership. The companies also did not say whether Lyft would offer Nexar dashes at a discount to Lyft drivers or give drivers the opportunity to collect data on the company’s behalf, although a Nexar spokesperson said drivers need to agree to participate.

The deal comes months after Zach Greenberger left his position as chief operating officer at Lyft to become Nexar’s CEO.