Ford, Lyft Team Up To Take Self-Driving Cars Mainstream
Sherif Marakby, Ford VP, Autonomous Vehicles and Electrification, says in a social media post, "We're announcing a significant step toward bringing self-driving vehicles to the masses thanks to a new partnership with Lyft that will help both companies progress toward a more affordable, dependable and accessible transportation future.
Someday, when you open the Lyft app during a period of high demand, Ford (F) and Lyft software will need to be capable of quickly dispatching a self-driving vehicle so that you can get to your destination as quickly and as safely as possible. And that's where our work with Lyft begins... As we build our technology platform, we will deploy human-driven vehicles on Lyft's network. This will allow us to test our platform interface to ensure compatibility with Lyft's customer-facing platform -- the one you currently see whenever you open the Lyft app. Our developer teams already are working together, programming our systems so they can communicate with one another.
The goal is that customers using Lyft won't notice any difference in their experience. We also will connect our self-driving test vehicles to Lyft's network. We don't, however, plan to put customers in them until we are certain our technology delivers a positive, reassuring experience where we can gain meaningful feedback. When ready, we'll have self-driving cars operating alongside Lyft's current community of drivers to help accommodate times of significant consumer demand to ensure that transportation remains timely and affordable.
We expect that our partnership with Lyft will accelerate our efforts to build a profitable and viable self-driving vehicle business. With Lyft's network and respected brand experience, we expect our ability to scale self-driving vehicles will play a critical role in safely bringing this technology-and its many benefits-to mainstream consumers.