Lyft Looks to Autonomous Driving Startup to Supply Fleet of Self-Driving Cars
Lyft this week announced a partnership with nuTonomy, a self-driving car startup.
It’s the third such partnership. Lyft is already cozy with Alphabet’s Waymo and General Motors. But nuTonomy’s deal starts with research and development and—assuming all goes well—ends with the company injecting Lyft’s ride-hailing network with thousands of autonomous vehicles.
Lyft is hoping that strategic partnerships will allow it to remain competitive with Uber, who is able to invest millions of its own dollars into self-driving technology. Uber also has a much larger team of engineers working on its autonomous driving projects, though the company is also embroiled in a legal battle with Waymo.
NuTonomy was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013. Last year the startup raised $16 million in venture capital. The company has been testing its technology in Asia but now plans to run a pilot project with Lyft in Boston, according to Logan Green, Lyft’s chief executive.
