Lyft, Waymo join on self-driving-car development

Ride-hailing firm, Google spinoff try to bring autonomous autos into mainstream.

SAN FRANCISCO — As the race to bring self-driving vehicles to the public intensifies, two of Silicon Valley’s most prominent players are teaming up.

Waymo, the self-driving car unit that operates under Google’s parent company, has signed a deal with the ride-hailing st ar tup Lyft , according to t wo people familiar with the agreement who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The deal calls for the companies to work together to bring autonomous vehicle technology into the mainstream through pilot projects and product development efforts, these people said.

The deal was confirmed by Lyft and Waymo.

“Waymo holds today’s best self-driving technology, and collaborating with them will accelerate our shared vision of improving lives with the world’s best transportation,” a Lyft spokeswoman said in a statement.

A Waymo spokesman said, “Lyft’s vision and commitment to improving the way cities move will help Waymo’s self-driving technology reach more people, in more places.”

The partnership highlights the fluid nature of relationships in the self-driving-car sec tor. From technolo gy companies to automakers to firms that manufacture components, dozens of players are angling for a slice of an autonomous vehicle market that many believe will ultimately be a multibillion-dollar industry.

To gain an edge and outmuscle rivals, many of these players are forming alliances — and sometimes shifting them.

The deal between Waymo and Lyft has competitive implications for Uber, the world’s biggest ride-hailing company, which has recently had to confront a spate of workplace and legal problems.

Lyft is a distant No. 2 to Uber among ride-hailing services in the United States, and the two companies are bitter rivals. Waymo is also competing fiercely with Uber in the creation of technology for autonomous cars and is embroiled in a lawsuit over what it says is Uber’s use of stolen Waymo trade secrets to develop such technology.

Det a i l s a bout t he de a l between Waymo and Lyft were s c a nt . The c o mpanies declined to comment on what types of products would be brought to market as a result of it or when the public might see the fruits of the collaboration.

The companies have left hints as to what the partnership could entail. Lyft, for instance, has long said it wants to match its network of passengers and drivers with partners in the transportation industry. Last year, it struck a deal with General Motors, a major Lyft investor, to help with that goal. Under that agreement, the companies plan to test autonomous Chevrolet Bolt vehicles using Lyft’s net work with the general public in the next few years.

Waymo has pursued its own partnerships. It is working with Fiat Chrysler on a fleet of minivans and is in talks with Honda about a possible deal that would put Waymo technology in test vehicles. Waymo also recently introduced a pilot program in Phoenix in which consumers can apply to hail self-driving Chrysler minivans and Lexuses for free rides around the city. The company has said it hopes to find new ways through such partnerships to bring its self-driving technology to the general public after nearly a decade of development.

The seeds of the partnership between Waymo and Lyft were planted in di scussions last summer, the two people familiar with the deal said. The talks involved Logan Green and John Zimmer, founders and leaders of Lyft, and John Krafcik, chief executive of Waymo. The idea of a deal evolved as the executives visited each other’s campuses in the ensuing months.

T h e p a r t n e r s h i p i n d i - cates that Waymo believes its self-driving-car technolo g y h a s moved p a s t t h e research stage and is ready to be applied commercially. Alphabet, Google’s parent company, spun Waymo out of Google’s X project lab in December after more than eight years of research. The vehicles have been tested on closed tracks and open roads in Arizona, California, Texas and Washington, where state law allows the testing of autonomous vehicles. Waymo has said the vehicles have logged more than 3 million miles of realworld testing.

For Lyft, which has said it has no plans to develop its own self-driving-car technology, the deal with Waymo offers another way into the market. While Lyft has said it will work with GM on testing autonomous vehicles, GM bought the self-driving-technology startup Cruise Automation last year for more than $1 billion in cash and stock. Cruise has begun testing GM vehicles on the open road in California.

In April, Lyft said it had raised $600 million in new venture capital, an investment round that valued the company at $6.9 billion.

Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment.