Lyft Could Roll Out Robotaxis In Texas Next Year – CleanTechnica

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There’s been a lot going on in the advanced driver-assist systems (ADAS) industry in the past couple of weeks. BYD has announced it’s including advanced driver-assist systems in all of its new models for free. Several Chinese automakers are partnering with DeepSeek, which may well have an autonomous driving component to it in time. Waymo’s going on a big road trip to 10+ cities. Elon Musk has said that Tesla will offer FSD (Unsupervised) robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June — “No one in the car. Full service.” A a Tesla Cybertruck using a new version of Full Self Driving (FSD) just drove full speed into a school drop-off lane and then a light pole. Now we’ve also got some notable news from Lyft.

Lyft has partnered with Mobileye, Tesla’s original Autopilot partner, and is saying that it could launch robotaxi service as soon as next year, 2026.

Lyft actually teamed up with Mobileye in November. “Lyft, Inc. (Nasdaq: LYFT), one of the largest transportation networks in North America, and Mobileye (Nasdaq: MBLY), a leading provider of self-driving technology and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), announced today plans for an alliance that aims to facilitate the widespread commercialization of autonomous vehicles’ services by industry-leading fleet operators,” they wrote on November 6, 2024. “Using the latest advancements in AI for autonomy, Mobileye provides AV technology to an ecosystem of purpose-built vehicle manufacturers, who integrate Mobileye’s AV technology in AV-ready vehicles for purchase by vehicle fleet operators and transportation service providers. The alliance of Lyft and Mobileye intends to leverage Lyft’s network of 40 million annual riders and exceptional reputation as a leading transportation network in North America to provide a seamless demand platform for Mobileye Drive™-based AV fleets.

“The objective is for future AV operators who want to deploy and manage large-scale fleets in various metropolitan areas in North America to purchase Mobileye Drive-equipped, ‘Lyft-ready’ vehicles from vehicle builders, access Lyft’s rider demand and optimize utilization and profitability of their fleets.

“The companies also plan to utilize Mobileye’s new cloud-based AV demand technology, which connects Mobileye Drive-equipped vehicles with AV fleet operators. Through Mobileye’s turnkey AV ecosystem and Lyft’s suite of AV Partner APIs, fleets of AVs are expected to be monetized, giving Lyft users faster and broader availability of AVs.”

The news now is that Lyft could launch robotaxi services next year, in 2026, in Dallas, Texas. It would then extend to other cities if things go well. “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,” TechCrunch writes.

Lyft’s top competitor, Uber, is partnering with Waymo to bring robotaxis to Austin, Atlanta, and surely far beyond.

It seems there is now a heated race to roll out robotaxi services across the US. That also implies that there won’t be a monopoly on this, assuming the various competitors are close enough in their capabilities. So far, only Waymo has proven that of the companies mentioned here. But it’s possible Mobileye, Tesla, and/or others are close behind.

“Mobileye’s full-stack technology is an important part of getting autonomous fleets Lyft-ready,” said David Risher, CEO at Lyft, in November. “As we make more AVs available to our 40 million annual riders, we’re laser-focused on building a platform where fleet owners will be proud to put their assets to work. We welcome Mobileye as an important strategic partner on the road to an autonomous future.”

“Cooperating with leading mobility providers and operators are essential steps to bring autonomous mobility services to reality,” said Prof. Amnon Shashua, President and CEO of Mobileye. “Enabling Mobileye Drive with Lyft’s network of 40 million annual riders in North America would allow our AV customers to reach new markets and geographies with autonomous services and provide the benefits of the technology through a sustainable business.”

There’s the old phrase “I’ll believe it when I see it,” but we’ve already been seeing it with Waymo and even Cruise until it ran into some controversy and redirected focus. There are also companies in China operating robotaxis every minute of every day. So, I’m now firmly in the camp of “I believe it,” but the question is who can get the most customers and who can do it in a financially profitable way? We shall see.