Drive.ai, a startup with ties to Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, will be deploying autonomous vehicle technology via Lyft’s open platform. The new pilot project will be based in the San Francisco area, but they would like to expand to all of Lyft’s 350+ cities.
They have not yet stated an official date for the launch. They also don’t have a target date for when the first passengers would be able to start riding in the driverless cars.
Drive.ai will be working to build more cost-efficient driverless technology. Their three priorities are safety, unique driver experience, and education. Drive.ai and Lyft both said there would need to be education regarding the possibilities and uses for AI software and vehicles.
For now, pilot vehicles will have a trained driver in the car as well. However, Drive.ai received a permit from the State of California for self-driving cars.
Drive.ai working to retrofit vehicles
Drive.ai recently acquired $50 million in funding, allowing it to expand its AI retrofit kits. These kits go onto already existing vehicles and work toward making them autonomous. The funding will be going toward the launch of their first retrofit kit pilots as well as international development.
Drive.ai uses fairly standard hardware for its kits – radar and liDAR. Their hope is to find a way to overcome the usual expense associated with retrofit kits and create an option that is palatable to business owners with a large fleet of cars.
Part of the Drive.ai software allows it to select whether a ride is a viable option for one of the autonomous vehicles. Drive.ai did not reveal its criteria for deciding whether a route would be safe, but it appears that wet conditions prove simple for autonomous cars.
Partnership with Lyft
The partnership with Lyft gives Drive.ai the perfect platform on which to test their software. Lyft’s open platform exists to help develop autonomous vehicles and deploy them in the market. Their stated goal is that it “introduces the world’s leading autonomous partners to millions of weekly miles. Together, we can accelerate the growth of self-driving technology and improve the safety and quality of life in our cities.”
They claim, among other things, that autonomous technology will reduce the number of accidents. Meanwhile, they hope ridesharing will reduce the number of vehicles on the roads overall.
Will self-driving cars replace Lyft drivers?
This partnership is only one more step in a list of Lyft’s moves toward self-driving cars. Do drivers need to be worried about the trend toward autonomous vehicles? Lyft says no.
Product Director Taggart Matthiesen has been quoted as saying that Lyft will always utilize manpower something. Although technology may continue to evolve and human drivers may become less prevalent, he said there are some things robots will never be able to mimic. In an interview with Recode, he specifically mentioned helping passengers with health issues as something that requires a human driver.
However, most say it’s likely that self-driving technology will displace at least part of the driver workforce.
