Lyft will always have a place for human drivers, exec says
Self-driving cars are the top priority for Lyft, the company's director of product has revealed.
Taggart Matthiesen, who runs autonomous efforts at the rideshare firm, called it 'one of the key pillars' the organization is working on, and said its 'basically the brand.'
He also said the company will always employ human drivers in some way, but while Lyft hasn't figured out in what capacity, it appears it would be for special services and not typical Lyft rides.
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Self-driving cars are the top priority for Lyft, the company's director of product revealed. Taggart Matthiesen, who runs autonomous efforts at the rideshare firm, called it 'one of the key pillars' the organization is working on said its 'basically the brand'
LYFT'S PRODUCT HEAD ON AUTONOMOUS EFFORTS Lyft's director of product, Taggart Matthiesen, said self-driving cars are the company's top priority. 'Autonomous is one of the key pillars this organization is working on,' he said. He said the technology will bring down costs due to how these vehicles are manufactured and can be completely controlled for optimization. He added, however, that the fleet may never be 100 percent autonomous and there will always be a place for drivers. It seems the company will employ drivers for special services but not typical rides. 'If I need to go to the doctor’s office and my leg is in a cast and I can’t drive, we have a service for that,' Matthiesen said. 'If you get into the world of autonomous, we may need someone in that vehicle to help that person'
In a podcast interview with Recode, Matthiesen said, 'We're trying to solve a pretty hard problem in terms of "how does a car drive itself?"'
Recode's Johana Bhuiyan pointed to all the other initiatives Lyft has announced recently - from Taco Mode to a partnership with Amtrak - and asked if there's a hierarchy in what the company is working on.
'Autonomous is one of the key pillars this organization is working on,' he said.
'We are dedicating a significant amount of effort and time to this self-driving system announcement.'
He added that 'it's basically the brand' and the company will have hundreds of engineers focusing on this problem in 2018, referring to the 'Level 5' self-driving car division Lyft announced last month.
When Bhuiyan zeroed in to ask if it is the top priority, Matthiesen said 'absolutely.'
'Today we're 100 percent drivers on our platform and we see this kind of hybrid evolution where autonomous will become at some point very, very key to how we provide transportation solutions to people.'
Matthiesen spoke of a future subscription model, which 'coupled with autonomous vehicles the company can 100 percent control for optimization,' would lower fares for riders.
This led to discussion of one of the most-controversial issues surrounding the rideshare industry's race for autonomous vehicles: what about the drivers?
'It will become cheaper by virtue of what? How does it become cheaper?' Bhuyian asked.
'It becomes cheaper, just the vehicles again,' Matthiesen.
'And also you don't have to pay commission out, so you can charge less?' Bhuyian questioned.
Matthiesen replied: 'I still think when you talk about commission and drivers, I still think drivers will be in this equation.'
He said 'drivers have always been part of the Lyft family' but didn't get specific on this front, choosing not to reveal what conversations Lyft has had with drivers or how many cars will have humans behind the wheel when autonomous vehicles hit the streets en masse.
Matthiesen spoke of a future subscription model, which 'coupled with autonomous vehicles the company can 100 percent control for optimization,' would lead cheaper fares for riders, which begged the question: what happens to the drivers?
WAYMO AND LYFT Waymo and Lyft are joining forces against ridesharing giant Uber, which is racing to develop its own self-driving vehicles. '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,' the Lyft statement read. Waymo and Uber are currently engaged in a bitter legal dispute. In February Waymo filed a lawsuit claiming that a former manager took technical data when he left to launch a competing venture that was later acquired by Uber.
But he said Lyft's fleet 'may never be 100 percent' autonomous because there are certain things only humans can do, making it clear the company's plan to include drivers only applies to special services and not the typical rides that make up for vast majority of its business.
'If I need to go to the doctor’s office and my leg is in a cast and I can’t drive, we have a service for that,' Matthiesen said.
'If you get into the world of autonomous, we may need someone in that vehicle to help that person.'
'There are things we’re doing beyond getting a passenger from point A to point B, additional services that we as a company can look at.'
Lyft's motivation for moving to autonomous is rooted in the potential to cut costs and boost profits.
While Matthiesen wasn't very willing to discuss saving by the means of eliminating the need to pay drivers, he spoke to the purely technological ways in which autonomous vehicles will be a cost-saver.
'But if you just look at autonomous vehicles, there's an opportunity for the cars to become cheaper in terms of how its manicured and utilization of these vehicles.'
'And then also just positioning of these vehicles as well to ensure we have the most optimal location for passenger pick ups.'
He said: 'It's a bit of a technology play, it's a bit of a subscription play and it's a bit of where these vehicles is evolving, and we think the combination of those will help us lower these prices over time.'
When exactly self-driving Lyfts will hit the road was an even more difficult question to navigate.
Matthiese said 'pockets' of self-driving Lyfts will be hitting the roads in urban areas very soon. 'We will slowly and surely bring these onto our network in a way that you again, as I said before, it's no different,' he said
Reports have indicated this is could be in just a few years while others have said it's decades out.
'It's anyone's guess at this time - you could say six to ten years from now,' Matthiesen said, regarding a mass roll-out.
But he said 'pockets' of self-driving Lyfts will be hitting the roads in urban areas very soon.
'We will slowly and surely bring these onto our network in a way that you again, as I said before, it's no different,' he said.
'I mean yes, it's going to be an autonomous vehicle, but it's going to slowly and surely be part of your day over time. '
Lyft has partnered with General Motors, Google's Waymo, Nutonomy, and Jaguar/Landrover for self-driving efforts.
The company's strategy originally involved an open platform where others could bring their autonomous technology to the company, but Lyft is now also developing its own technology.
The first reason why Lyft is so well-positioned to do this, Matthiesen says, is because it 'has a significant amount of data.'
'We do a million miles a day in trips,' he said.
'If you think about the self-driving problem for vehicles, people talk about mapping - well there's 930-something miles of navigable road in San Francisco and we have enough info to help us identify a very small segment of that would allow us to get our vehicles up and running, so we don't need to map all 930 miles of road.'
Lyft Inc has formed a self-driving car division, company executives said, a bold investment for the second-largest U.S. ride-services firm as it jockeys for position in the highly competitive autonomous vehicle race
'We know the routes, so we have an opportunity to work with our partners and make sure the tech they're bringing to market fits those requirements.'
Last month, Lyft revealed its opening a 'Level 5' self-driving car division to take on autonomous efforts by Uber.
The executives said the company would soon open a facility in Palo Alto, California known as 'Level 5' that would eventually be staffed by 'several hundred' engineers.
Lyft engineers will collaborate there with autonomous vehicle experts from other companies to build self-driving systems.
'We are putting down the accelerator significantly on investment on this,' Raj Kapoor, chief strategy officer for Lyft, told reporters at its San Francisco headquarters.
Lyft's new effort could put it in direct competition with some of its earlier automatic partners.
The company, which will not be manufacturing the actual cars, offered no time line for its self-driving ambitions.
Executives said Lyft would share data from its self-driving efforts with other companies joining the collaboration.
Lyft does not have a permit to test autonomous cars in California, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
The company plans to launch a pilot with Nutonomy in Boston by year-end.
Building autonomous driving systems is a complicated and expensive endeavor, and brings a new layer of complexity to Lyft.
Lyft previously announced partnerships with Alphabet's self-driving division, Waymo, technology company Nutonomy, and automakers General Motors Co and Jaguar Land Rover
None of the 1.2 billion miles driven last year were with autonomous technology, experts point out, meaning Lyft will be starting from scratch in a business where Waymo, Tesla and Uber have been operating for years.
'It does still take a lot to do this, even if there is lots off-the-shelf technology, to engineer them together and create systems and put them in a vehicle,' said Jeremy Carlson, an automotive analyst at IHS Markit.
Lyft's new push comes as Uber is facing a lawsuit from Waymo over alleged theft of trade secrets relating to self-driving technology designs.
Lyft in April raised $600 million in new funding .
The company has begun preparations for an initial public offering, sources close to the company told Reuters.