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Lyft sells its autonomous driving unit to Toyota for $ 550 million, another example of high expectations among travel sharing groups hoping to build a robotaxi network.
The agreement extends Toyota’s efforts to go beyond mere car manufacturing to other “mobility services”.
President John Zimmer of Lift announced in 2016 that “driverless cars” will have an account The majority of Lyft rides in five years ’time,” but the forecast had a very wide mark. Zimmer also predicted that by 2025 “private car ownership will end in major U.S. cities.”
In February last year he offered more than Lyft 100,000 “Paid car driving rides” – enough to claim to take on “the largest public car driving platform in the U.S.” – but a safety driver was always sitting behind the wheel and Lyft struggled to get to the next stage.
Lyft’s departure follows closely the rise of Uber, a U.S. opponent, which in December suspended an internal effort by 1,200 people to build a driverless car. Opponent Aurora paid $ 400 million to take over the business. Uber is maintaining its stake.
Toyota said Monday it would pay Lyft $ 200 million to take over the self-driving unit, which has 300 teams called “Level 5” – an ambitious reference to complete autonomy regardless of weather or geography – and agreed to pay another $ 350 over five years. more than.
The unit will meet in Toyota’s new Woven Planet division, which it says is “on a mission to design a happier planet”. . .[by]transforming the way people live, move and play, through innovation and new investments in automated driving, robotics, smart cities and more ”.
Woven Planet creates advanced technology to help the Toyota Guardian drive and the Toyota Chauffeur focuses on full autonomy.
The Japanese team has been cautious with the spread of driving technology on its own. Earlier this month it launched Lexus with “Level 2” self-driving capabilities that include features such as changing lanes.
It planned to unveil a “Level 4” mobility service van that will allow driverless operations on pre-determined routes to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but this was delayed later this year due to the pandemic.
Toyota has a minimum stake in Aurora, which was previously invested in Uber’s self-driving unit, and said in February that it would partner with Aurora to launch driverless cars.
James Kuffner, CEO of Woven Planet, did not acquire Lyft’s business and deal with a potential dispute between the deal with Aurora. It didn’t offer a projection on when it could become the main technology.
But he said the purchase brings together a “dream team” of engineers and scientists.
Lyft, for the public company since June 2019, the deal eliminates $ 100 million in annual operating expenses and should “speed up Lyft’s path” to a long-promised goal of achieving “adjusted Ebitda profitability,” the company said.
Lyft still believes in an autonomous future, but its efforts will be focused far from making the vehicle and “third-party” technology will be focused on deploying and scaling its network, said CEO Logan Green.
“We look forward to continuing to partner with the best autonomous vehicle companies to market this technology,” Green said.
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