Ford and ride-sharing company Lyft has announced a new partnership that will see both parties work together to bring self-driving cars further toward mainstream public acceptance. It’ll be an uphill climb, and something that’s far from new, but the combined expertise and Ford’s scale of investment in the technology might make this work better than, say, Volvo’s tie-up with Uber.
This is a particularly interesting announcement as Lyft had previously signed a non-exclusive partnership to collaborate and develop new technology along a very similar arc with another major American automaker, General Motors, Ford’s arch frenemy. It’ll also indicates an intent by the Blue Oval accelerate their efforts in autonomous cars beyond the feverish pace they were already going, a possible push by their new CEO Jim Hackett who was previously head of their Smart Mobility division.
Hackett might realise that the road toward fully autonomous cars isn’t one that will be paved and perfected in the short term. In fact, he outright said as much last month in San Francisco at a technology event organised by Ford. Realistically, ride-sharing serves as largest opportunity for real world testing that any automaker would want. Hence, their inking a collaboration deal with Lyft, the only other major player in the space within North America apart from the embattled Uber.
Apart from the obvious focus in software and driving data analytics, Lyft has expressed interest in manufacturing their own hardware that would, ideally, be able to be sold to automakers who do not have autonomous capability as an off-the-shelf solution. Ford, by contrast, has had to focus more on tight integration of the various hardware components that act as the eyes and ears of the self-driving brain, before being able to train the brain itself.
According to Ford’s vice president of autonomous tech and EVs, Sherif Marakby, the end goal, at least insofar as the relationship between Lyft and Ford’s autonomous fleet can foreseeably end up, is: Someday, when you open the Lyft app during a period of high demand, Ford and Lyft software will need to be capable of quickly dispatching a self-driving vehicle so that you can get to your destination as quickly and as safely as possible. And that’s where our work with Lyft begins.”
Believe us when we say that there will be many other announcements of various automakers collaborating non-exclusively with ride-sharing services, tech companies, and component suppliers. Almost, in fact, too many to keep track of. And unfortunately, nearly all of them will be rather boring handshake ceremonies that’ll mark the start of an arduous period where things get done - or not done - behind the scenes.
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