Lyft receives $25m and a fleet from Jaguar Land Rover
UK automaker Jaguar Land Rover has invested $25m in ride-hailing firm Lyft to advance its autonomous and connected vehicle ventures. The funding came through InMotion, which is Jaguar Land Rover's mobility services unit. The automaker has also said it will provide Lyft with an unspecified number of vehicles as part of its investment. The ride-hailing company is now valued at $7.5bn after its latest funding round.
UK-automaker Jaguar Land Rover is investing $25 million in Lyft to support the ride-hail company’s autonomous and connected vehicle activities, the two companies announced today. The money was invested through InMotion, Jaguar Land Rover’s mobility services subsidiary, and was included in Lyft’s latest round of fundraising, which ended in April.

Under the terms of the deal, JLR will provide an unknown number of vehicles to Lyft drivers. Additionally, JLR — Britain’s biggest carmaker — will be allowed to test its autonomous vehicles on Lyft’s ride-hailing network. The automaker has been testing its autonomous research vehicles on a 44-mile stretch near its headquarters in Coventry.

Lyft has been on a streak of corporate cooperation lately, having just recently locked down a pair of deals with two self-driving startups, Waymo and NuTonomy, to accelerate the deployment of on-demand, autonomous vehicles. But the partnership with JLR is Lyft’s first significant investment from a traditional automaker since General Motors gave it $500 million in December 2015.

The legacy auto industry has been increasingly interested in technology and mobility companies

The legacy auto industry has been increasingly interested in technology and mobility companies like Uber and Lyft, as it seeks to insulate itself from a predicted decline in personal car ownership.

The news is also the latest sign that Lyft — No. 2 in the US, but still significantly smaller than rival Uber — prefers to remain somewhat of a passive player in the world of self-driving cars. Rather than develop its own software, the company will allow companies like GM, Waymo, NuTonomy, and now JLR, to test their vehicles on its platform. Lyft president and co-founder John Zimmer has said that he expects the majority of the company’s rides to take place in autonomous vehicles by 2021.

Of course, Lyft isn’t the only ride-hailing company out there making these types of partnerships. Uber inked a deal with Volvo last year to purchase 100 cars with the goal of outfitting them with the ride-hail company’s autonomous hardware. The app company also recently joined forces with German auto giant Daimler on the deployment of self-driving cars. The cars, along with the autonomous technology, will be manufactured by Daimler before being introduced into Uber’s ride-hailing network, the companies say.