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 shares its fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 earnings report, and it coincides with Waymo’s preparations to launch a commercial robotaxi service in partnership 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 its OEM partner 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 chief policy officer, told TechCrunch that the plan is to scale to thousands of vehicles across multiple cities after Lyft’s Texas debut.
The Marubeni partnership feels a little like a non sequitur for Lyft; the 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 actually served as the intermediary between Lyft and Marubeni, said Bird. And for Lyft’s asset-light business model, finding a partner to commit to owning the fleet of vehicles 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 is Lyft’s service to connect drivers who don’t own vehicles with rental cars. Bird says 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.
Bird noted that Lyft is in talks with every major autonomy player about bringing them onto the platform. And Lyft probably wants to kick those conversations into gear as its main competitor Uber snatches up partnerships with other AV companies. Aside from Waymo, Uber has announced deals with Wayve, Avride, Serve Robotics, Nuro, Aurora Innovation, Waabi, and others.
Outside of its Mobileye deal, Lyft has only announced plans to launch AVs with May Mobility in Atlanta this year.
Lyft’s slower roll towards autonomy isn’t for lack of trying, though. The company has had its share of bad luck in the AV arena.
Lyft previously partnered with startups Motional and Argo AI to launch robotaxi services in Las Vegas – initially with a human safety driver behind the wheel, but the plan was to go fully driverless. Then Motional paused that partnership in May after slashing its workforce, and Argo AI shut down in 2022. Lyft had a stake in Argo, and took a $135.7 million hit when the company folded.
Before that, Lyft had tried to develop autonomous vehicle technology in-house. Uber did the same. Both sold their AV units; Uber to Aurora in December 2020, and Lyft to Toyota’s Woven Planet in April 2021.
Bird acknowledged that Uber’s spree of AV partnerships “does create urgency,” but he said it also signals that the deployment of robotaxis won’t be concentrated with just one company.
He said Lyft’s goal now is to build solid partnerships both with companies developing AV tech and with companies that want to own fleets of autonomous vehicles, which aligns with Lyft’s asset-light business model.
“The rest of the value chain is where we really want to play a role, and that’s in fleet management, demand generation, and marketplace,” Bird said.
