Lyft chalks up more than 5 000 self-driving rides

LYFT HAS COMPLETED more than 5 000 self-driving rides through its ride-hailing app, the company said yesterday, as it aims to become a serious competitor in autonomous driving while its biggest rival, Uber, retrenches.

Lyft launched its self-driving service in January in Las Vegas, where passengers can take a ride in an autonomous BMW to and from some 20 different pick-up and destination spots around the city’s casino-laden strip.

The autonomous driving system is not built by Lyft, however, but by high-tech carparts supplier Aptiv, which Lyft partnered with earlier this year.

Lyft is developing its own self-driving system, but company officials have declined to say when it will be ready for public streets. Lyft is far behind competitors such as Alphabet’s Waymo, which has been testing autonomous cars for about a decade.

The Las Vegas service is available to all Lyft passengers, who get a prompt asking if they agree to ride in a self-driving car. If their destination is along one of the approved routes, they may get picked up by a robot car. Two safety drivers are in the front seats.

Lyft and Aptiv declined to provide financial details on the service, which costs passengers the same as a Lyft ride in a human-driven car, but both companies “are making money on this,” said Jody Kelman, product lead for Lyft’s self-driving platform.

Aptiv has a fleet of 75 self-driving cars in Las Vegas, 20 of which are picking up Lyft passengers.