Lyft Inc. today announced plans to make autonomous taxis available to users of its ride-hailing app in Atlanta.
In response to NBC News, the vehicles will start taking passengers in the summertime. Lyft plans to follow up the launch by extending its autonomous ride-hailing service to Dallas next yr. In the long run, the corporate will bring autonomous taxis to several additional markets.
In Atlanta, Lyft plans to partner with a startup called May Mobility Inc. on the rollout. The latter company is backed by about $300 million in funding from BMW i Ventures, Toyota Ventures and other institutional backers. It operates a shuttle service powered by autonomous Toyota Sienna minivans that follow fixed routes.
May Mobility’s vehicles use an internally developed autonomous driving system called MPDM. In response to the corporate, the software makes driving decisions by estimating what nearby drivers and pedestrians will do next. It then simulates multiple ways of responding to those projected movements and picks the plan of action deemed to be the safest.
MPDM uses several different sensors to gather data in regards to the road ahead. If one among them malfunctions, the platform can use the remaining sensors to proceed driving. There are also several other safety features, including a tool that enables May Mobility staffers to log right into a vehicle during difficult driving situations.
Lyft’s autonomous taxi service in Atlanta will use Toyota Sienna minivans powered by MPDM. In Dallas, the subsequent location where the service is about to launch, the corporate will take a special approach. It plans to partner with Marubeni Corp., a Japanese conglomerate that operates automobile dealerships, in addition to Intel Corp.’s Mobileye unit.
Mobileye provides an autonomous driving system called Driver that competes with May Mobility’s software. The system is predicated on the Intel unit’s EyeQ 6 chip, which features an eight-core central processing unit and artificial intelligence accelerators. Drive combines 4 of the chips with cameras, lidar sensors and radar units.
In response to The Verge, Lyft’s long-term goal is to create an autonomous fleet with “1000’s of vehicles” that will likely be available in multiple cities. The corporate will use May Mobility’s MPDM software in several of those cities.
Uber Technologies Inc., Lyft’s top competitor, has launched an autonomous taxi service of its own in partnership with Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo unit. The vehicles are currently available in Austin and Atlanta. Earlier this yr, the businesses announced plans to make the service available in Dallas.
Image: Lyft
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