[msb-alumni] Lyft ups ante on Uber, starts self-driving car division
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2017 13:33:53 -0400
BlankLyft ups ante on Uber, starts self-driving car division Marco della Cava ,
USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO -- Lyft announced Friday that it is building out a self-driving
car team that will be staffed by a few hundred engineers by the end of 2018.
The ride-hailing company also will, by the end of this year, test its
self-driving platform aboard a vehicle developed in partnership with nuTonomy,
a
Cambridge, Mass-based autonomous vehicle software company.
In establishing the new division -- which will work from a Palo Alto building
called Level 5, after the highest level of autonomy -- Lyft is signaling a more
aggressive stance toward ensuring its survival in a future where car ownership
gradually will be replaced by subscription access to vehicles. Executives said
at a press conference that the inevitability of autonomous vehicles meant that
Lyft could not afford to miss the opportunity to add to the quickly evolving
hardware and software conversation.
"This is too strategic an area for us not to be a player," said Luc Vincent,
the
Google Street View creator who now serves as Lyft's vice president of autonomy.
"We want to take an active role."
But in light of the significant setbacks experienced by its larger rival Uber,
Lyft's news brings to mind the Irving Berlin lyric, "Anything you can do, I can
do better."
Uber's struggles stemming from accusations of harboring a sexist work
environment and inquiries by regulators into practices that skirt the law led
to
the resignation last month of its high-profile co-founder, Travis Kalanick. An
internal investigation led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder produced
a laundry list of recommendations to right Uber's ship, including an
overhauling
of human resources practices and a review of its board of directors.
Vincent made oblique reference to his cross-town rival's ongoing issues without
naming names. "The Lyft brand is strong, we are caring, we're nice people, we
work with drivers and partners and passengers," he said.
More pointedly, Uber's self-driving car program, which Kalanick built virtually
overnight by raiding top universities and competitors, has stumbled since
announcing last summer that its self-driving cars would begin picking up
passengers in Pittsburgh. Anthony Levandowski, a former Google car engineer who
departed to start self-driving truck company Otto, became Uber's head of
autonomous programs when Uber bought Otto last year. The acquisition was seen
as a way for Uber to race to the fore on the technological front, throwing down
the gauntlet before Google's self-driving car program, Waymo, which has been
running for eight years.
But in February, Waymo' sued Levandowski and Uber 'claiming that its former
employee had stolen 14,000 trade secrets related to its LiDAR sensor, which
helps cars see their environment. The suit is slated to go to trial this fall.
Uber has steadfastly denied that it used any purloined files to build its tech,
but the lawsuit has laced Uber's autonomous road with potholes.
While some recent surveys indicate that Lyft has gained market share on Uber
since the crisis came to a boil in February, it remains unclear how many Uber
users ultimately will be willing to turn their disapproval of the company's
executives into a deletion of its app.
Lyft says it has tripled its quarterly rides to 90 million between the second
quarter of 2017 and the year ago quarter. The company has increased its U.S.
footprint to 350 cities.
In describing Lyft's self-driving car mission, executives said the goal is to
work with a range of companies so that a consumer hailing a Lyft will be
matched
up with the most convenient option, whether that be a human-driven Lyft or'a
Waymo or GM autonomous car.
GM, which has invested $500 million in Lyft, will be one of Lyft's partners in
self-driving technology,
but will continue to develop its own program as well.
"No single partner of ours would have an advantage, ours will be an agnostic
system," said Taggart Mattheisen, Lyft senior director of product.
Lyft co-founders Logan Green (left) and John Zimmer (right) with GM president
Dan Ammann (center). GM owns
a 9% stake in Lyft and Ammann is a member of the company's board of directors.
(Photo: General Motors)
The implication was that Lyft would settle for a revenue-sharing agreement with
owners of self-driving fleets rather than placing itself in competition with
them. Executives declined to comment on how that would break down.
"There's a new mindset of collaboration among the players. They realize they
need to bring this to market, and that sharing can
make that happen," Lyft chief strategy officer Raj Kapoor says. Kapoor and his
colleagues were vague when asked what specific hardware, including LiDAR,
Lyft's
new team planned to develop. "We can't comment on that right now," he says.
"But
we're not manufacturing our own car, we're creating a self-driving system and
partnering with the auto industry to bring it to life."
One slide showed the various aspects of autonomy that Lyft plans to tackle,
including mapping, perception, path planning and motion control. The company
also said it would provide Lyft riders, via its app, with a real-time view of
what the car's sensors were seeing.
Mattheisen said riders should expect to see autonomous Lyft rides rolling out
"in small pockets, in isolation, and not on every street. That means if it's
raining, or there's a big traffic issue, both of which aren't ideal for
self-driving cars, you'll still have options with our service."
In early June, Lyft unveiled an Open Platform Initiative in order to better
partner with a wide range of automotive and tech companies working on
self-driving cars, ranging from Waymo to Ford.
Lyft's other incentive for joining the self-driving car development roundtable
is pure economics. Analysts have said that ride-hailing companies will
instantly
earn that stratospheric valuations -- Uber at around $70 billion and Lyft at $7
billion -- if they can cut out driver payments from their business model. Lyft
expects it to be at least a decade or more before drivers were needed less than
they are now, "and when that comes there will be new (employment)
opportunities,
including elderly care (in the vehicle), perhaps a cafe service within a car,
or
a concierge that travels with you," said Kapoor.
In creating a technology platform for a range of self-driving
players to deploy their vehicles and a service option to help them monetize
those vehicles, Lyft is hedging against a bet on any one particular company
winning these sweepstakes.
"There's no question where this is all moving, and it's away from owning a car,
which costs people an average of $9,000 a year and is used about 4% of the
time," Kapoor said. "Self-driving cars will be safer, offer lower prices for
the
consumer and help the environment thanks to shared ridership and electric
power."
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