Ride-hailing company Lyft has announced plans to build its own self-driving car technology and launch its autonomy programme in Boston by the end of the year. Riders who sign up for the pilot may be automatically picked up in a self-driving car built by one of a number of manufacturers working with Lyft, rather than a human driver, company officials told the Washington Post. However, Lyft riders who take part in the trial will be accompanied by test drivers sitting in the front seats of the vehicles. The autonomy programme is set to eventually spread to other cities and could ultimately involve hundreds of thousands of vehicles, they said.
The effort is part of a larger self-driving car division that Lyft is launching so that third parties can plug their driverless cars into the company’s network. The Open Platform, which Lyft announced in June, could feature vehicles from partners such as GM and Jaguar Land Rover, which entered into a deal with Lyft last month. In Boston, the test pilot will feature self-driving car vehicles built by Cambridge-based Nutonomy, said the report.
