Uber’s rival to launch driverless ride-hailing in 2023

Written by?/?Ma Xiaolei

Edited by?/?Zhang Linyu

Designed by?/?Zhao Haoran

Source?/?Bloomberg, author : Lizette Chapman

Unlike the situation in the Chinese market where Didi is the dominant player, the US online ride-hailing market is divided between the two giants Lyft and Uber. As of September 2020, Lyft's market share in the United States was 29% and Uber's 71%.

Designated waiting area for Lyft ride-sharing service at San Diego International Airport in California

Lyft said on Wednesday, December 16, that it expects that starting in 2023, customers will be able to use its app to hail rides without Human-driven cars, the vehicles are provided by Motional, the autonomous driving joint venture of Hyundai Motor Group and Aptiv.

Just a week before the news was announced, Lyft competitor Uber sold its self-driving car unit to startup Aurora Innovation. Uber’s self-driving unit has been losing money despite its heavy responsibilities and ambitious goals. It would have to be sold in order to achieve an adjusted quarterly profit before the end of next year.

As early as CES 2018, Aptiv partnered with Lyft to provide autonomous driving pilot services to the public. In May of the same year, 30 self-driving vehicles were launched on Lyft's Las Vegas operating network to run paid self-driving taxi trials.

The next phase of the project will be completely different from those tests, with the vehicles operating in more complex urban environments and removing human drivers entirely, the companies said. This also means that the final operating costs of online ride-hailing will be lower.

“We’ve figured out a business model that can be profitable at scale for both companies.” Raj Kapoor, Lyft’s chief strategy officer and head of self-driving efforts explain. The two companies did not disclose the financial details of the project and declined to specify which cities it plans to launch in 2023.

Many technology companies’ dreams of self-driving cars have been shattered, and the entire industry is suspected of being a big deal but not a big deal. Self-driving cars have long generated enthusiasm and hype within the technology industry. In recent years, even the most optimistic companies and investors have acknowledged that fully autonomous cars will take more time and money than previously thought.

While the frenzy to pursue self-driving cars in the short term has faded, companies that have survived the race have made progress in recent months, releasing real plans for fully autonomous vehicle projects. The "landing" time is no longer a limited test in a fixed area.

In October, General Motors Co.'s Cruise said it received permission to test fully driverless cars in San Francisco, and Google's Waymo expanded its fully driverless car range to cover all of Phoenix. user.

Zoox? Robotaxi

In December, Taiwanese media reported that Apple began to set up a car assembly plant in the United States, and it is expected that self-driving cars will be unveiled in 2024-2025. On December 14, Amazon’s self-driving unit Zoox released its first robotaxi and announced that it would launch driverless taxi services in San Francisco and Las Vegas.

Uber sold its self-driving research unit to Aurora. Uber also holds a large stake in the startup and has guaranteed that if the vehicle is eventually launched, it will operate on Uber's platform.

Motional is a joint venture between Hyundai and Lyft announced in August 2020. The non-exclusive cooperation with Lyft will provide Motional with a ready-made customer base and enable it to quickly move from research and development to commercialization.

Motional CEO Karl Iagnemma said the arrangement will accelerate the expansion of its existing fleet of more than 100 self-driving vehicles. “This agreement marks the largest robotaxi deployment collaboration among a major ride-hailing network and is a leap forward compared to Motional’s current partnership with Lyft,” he said.

Both Kapoor and Agnima said that in the past few years, the autonomous driving industry has indeed had high ambitions and low ambitions, and over-promised, but they still believe that 2023 is a realistic goal. "Maybe the goal will be moved back to 2024 or 2025." Kapur said, "But this is a goal that we are satisfied with."

In the Chinese market, since Uber was absorbed by Didi and exited China, Didi has The online ride-hailing market has always been in a near-monopoly position, with a market share of nearly 90%.

Didi D1

Didi established an autonomous driving technology research and development department in 2016. In August 2019, Didi announced that it would upgrade the autonomous driving department to an independent company, Didi Autonomous Driving It has obtained public road test licenses for autonomous driving in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and California, and obtained the first batch of national intelligent connected vehicle demonstration application licenses issued by Shanghai.

In November, Didi Chuxing CEO Cheng Wei said that he hopes to remove the cockpit in 2030 and plans to achieve fully autonomous driving.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.