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Source: Lyft Doubles Down On Robot Car Tests Partnering With NuTonomy In Boston.
By Alan Ohnsman .
Just weeks after Lyft and Alphabet’s Waymo said they’d work together to test self-driving cars, the No. 2 U.S. rideshare company unveiled plans for a separate pilot project in Boston with nuTonomy to evaluate competing driverless technology.
The project with startup nuTonomy kicks off “in the coming months,” Lyft CEO and co-founder Logan Green said in a conference call, without providing a firm start date. If all goes well, the program could grow from a handful of vehicles to something much larger.
“The first stage of the partnership will be R&D around understanding the passenger experience,” Green said. “We're planning future stages of our collaboration that could lead to thousands of nuTonomy cars on the Lyft platform.”
nuTonomy launched one of the earliest driverless rideshare programs with a project that began in Singapore a year ago, ahead of Uber’s program in Pittsburgh, and is already testing cars in its hometown of Boston. The company is led by Karl Iagnemma, former director of the Robotics Mobility Group at MIT, and fellow scientist Emilio Frazzoli. Just as Google’s self-driving car project transformed into Waymo, nuTonomy evolved from their work in the early 2000s on MIT's DARPA Challenge robot car race team.
Although a Lyft spokesperson told Forbes that it still plans to work with Waymo, in addition to a project with investor General Motors that it hasn’t yet detailed, Green wouldn't discuss those alliances.
“We're very excited to be working with nuTonomy as a huge leader in this space,” he said. "Our work with each of our partners is unique and different," Green added, without elaborating.
The Boston project does not include “any financial arrangement” between the companies, but instead is a “collaborative R&D-based” effort, he said. nuTonomy’s Iagnemma confirmed that the program will use modified versions of Renault’s electric Zoe hatchbacks already on the road in Boston.
“Partnerships are really critical in bringing mobility solutions to the marketplace,” Iagnemma said. “Especially in achieving scale, no one can do it alone. This is why we focused on Lyft as our first ridesharing partner in the U.S.”
Lyft is playing the field when it comes to tech partners, a key strategic departure from that of rival Uber.
That company has invested heavily in its Advanced Technologies Group, opening elaborate R&D facilities in Pittsburgh, and adding teams in San Francisco and Toronto. Uber’s goal is to develop its own driverless technology for passenger services as well as to haul commercial shipments. Its eagerness to build a program to rival that of Google, including hiring former Google self-driving car experts, also led to a high-stakes legal fight with Waymo that's playing out in federal court in San Francisco.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/06/06/lyft-doubles-down-on-robot-car-tests-partnering-with-nutonomy-in-boston/#3f0bb1525526
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