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Raphael Thys
A partnership between Argo AI, Lyft and Ford has been formed to commercialize autonomous ride hailing. The trio aims to develop an autonomous ride-hailing service that includes self-driving technology, alongside a vehicle fleet and a transportation network to build a scalable business.
The plan is to deploy Ford’s own self-driving cars, with safety drivers on board, in Miami, Florida, later this year as part of the Lyft network. The collaboration is then looking to provide passenger rides in Austin, Texas, in 2022.
Users of the Lyft service in specified areas of Miami will be able to select a self-driving vehicle for a ride. Through the first deployment phase, the collaboration will work out the future scaling operations for the project, and once agreements between the parties have been finalized, the aim is to deploy around 1,000 autonomous vehicles in various locations on the Lyft network over the next five years.
The collaboration’s main goal is to design, develop and then scale its autonomous vehicle deployment service by utilizing market and safety data to define where self-driving technology is best suited to safely serve customers.