It appears Lyft is hoping to catch up with Uber’s string of autonomous vehicle partnerships.

Lyft announced three separate partnerships on Wednesday — with startup May Mobility, automated driving company Mobileye and smart dashcam company Nexar — all aimed at establishing a foothold in the emerging autonomous vehicle market.

In the announcement, the ride-hailing company said it has signed a deal with May Mobility to launch autonomous vehicles on the Lyft app, starting in Atlanta in 2025. Lyft also announced a partnership with Intel-owned Mobileye, which will allow certain with AV technology-equipped vehicles to leverage the ride-hailing app and a data-sharing agreement with Nexar designed to give OEMs and operators better insights to train autonomous driving systems.

This isn’t the first time Lyft has delved into autonomous vehicles. The company previously provided a robotaxi service – always with a human safety driver behind the wheel – in Las Vegas through a partnership with Motional. It had a similar agreement in Austin and Miami with Argo AI. However, Motional ended that partnership in May after cutting its workforce, and Argo AI shut down in 2022. Lyft had a stake in Argo and took a $135.7 million hit when the company filed for bankruptcy.

Uber, meanwhile, has been busy closing deals with top AV companies in the robotaxi, delivery and freight industries, including Waymo, Cruise, Avride, Serve Robotics, Aurora Innovation, Waabi and more.

May Mobility + Lyft, from 2025

May Mobility has made a name for itself by rolling out autonomous microtransit services, mainly in geofenced areas in the US. The startup’s shuttles operate within campuses and to designated stops along fixed routes in cities such as Ann Arbor, Michigan, Arlington, Virginia, Peachtree Corners in Atlanta, Miami and Sun City, Arizona. In May 2023, May Mobility launched an on-demand service in Grand Rapids, Michigan in partnership with Via.

“Partnering with Lyft will open new markets for us to operate in, bringing greater mobility to more people, faster,” Edwin Olson, co-founder and CEO of May Mobility, said in a statement.

The multi-year Lyft partnership is May’s first foray into ride-hail. May Mobility and Lyft have not said when the AVs will be deployed, how many of May’s Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS vehicles will hit the streets, or whether May will offer bundled rides and shuttles, or individual on-demand public transportation.

In a statement, May noted that initial deployments will use front-seat safety drivers, with plans to transition to fully self-driving vehicles over time.

Creating a ‘Lyft-ready’ Mobileye network

Mobileye offers self-driving technology across the spectrum of autonomy, from advanced Level 2 driver assistance systems to fully autonomous Level 4 systems. Mobileye Drive, the company’s L4 system, consists of everything from the self-driving software to the sensor stack to a cloud infrastructure with a digital twin of the world.

“The next step for us is to use this Mobileye Drive cloud, or the demand gateway as we call it, to connect to the various ride-hailing, ride-pooling and public transport networks of the world,” says Christian Lichtmannecker, head of AV at Mobileye’s Mobility-as-a-Service business development unit, told TechCrunch.

In other words, any fleet that already has Mobileye Drive on board – which currently includes select Volkswagen, Schaeffler and Benteler Holon models – will be able to connect to the Lyft network in the future. Lichtmannecker said this will allow both small and large fleet operators to seamlessly access Lyft’s platform and network of riders.

“Lyft’s purpose is to connect AVs, drivers, riders and partners to create new opportunities for everyone,” Lyft CEO David Risher said in a statement. “Our rideshare network will continue to evolve because millions of people will have the opportunity to earn billions of dollars whether they choose to ride, deploy their AVs, or both.”

Neither Lyft nor Mobileye shared when or where the first Mobileye-powered vehicles would appear on the Lyft app, but Lichtmannecker noted the two are in discussions today with operating and OEM partners.

Mobileye is testing its propulsion technology in Austin, Detroit and Orlando. The company is also testing how its technology handles extreme weather conditions in Norway, Germany and Israel. Mobileye is currently testing with a safety driver behind the wheel and plans to remove the driver once the safety of its technology is validated.

Insights into smart dashcams from Nexar to AV development

Nexar has been using video data from its line of smart dashcams in recent years to scale a digital dual service that it sells to automotive OEMs and cities.

Now, Nexar and Lyft believe that by joining forces, they can provide OEMS and AV companies with even better insights.

The two companies will connect Nexar’s more than 45 petabytes of real-world footage, covering 200 million miles per month, with Lyft’s historical and freshly anonymized and aggregated market data to create “a comprehensive and robust data set for AV technology development.” ” to create.

Lyft and Nexar have not shared how they intend to share revenue in this partnership. The companies also did not say whether Lyft will offer discounted Nexar dash cams to Lyft drivers or even offer a discount for collecting data on the company’s behalf, although a Nexar spokesperson said drivers must agree to participate.

The deal comes just a few months after Zach Greenberger left his role as Chief Business Officer at Lyft to become CEO of Nexar.