Ford has just announced a partnership with Lyft which will see its autonomous vehicles deployed in the ride-hailing service’s platform by 2021.
In a recent post published on Medium, Ford vice president of autonomous vehicles and electrification, Sherif Marakby said the automaker will work alongside engineers from Lyft to allow its self-driving vehicles to seamlessly communicate with the Lyft app.
Ford says that initially, its self-driving vehicles won’t operate without a driver in the Lyft network until it is totally safe to do so. When the technology is perfected, Ford intends on having fully-autonomous vehicles offering rides to Lyft users.
“Think of it this way: 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,” Marakby said.
The collaboration between Ford and Lyft is interesting as General Motors is already working with the ride-hailing service in its pursuit to roll out autonomous vehicles.
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