Lyft Opening Its Own Autonomous Driving Division

Lyft will launch its own "self-driving division" with the goal of developing autonomous driving technology.

In a Medium post, Lyft Vice President of Engineering Luc Vincent said the move is part of the company's effort to "build an ecosystem that offers a variety of ride types, including both rides with drivers as well as rides from self-driving vehicles."

The autonomous driving division will be based out of a new development facility in Palo Alto, California which will be called the Level 5 Engineering Center. As the name suggests, the company will be working on developing technology that allows for full Level 5 autonomy which means the car can drive itself in all situations. This is important for ride-sharing services such as Lyft as it would enable users to simply request a ride from their smartphone and a car would automatically drive to their location and pick them up.

Vincent says the company is "uniquely positioned to build technology, in collaboration with partners, in a way that makes it possible to roll out self-driving cars at scale in the fastest, safest, most efficient way." As he explained, Lyft drivers travel tens of millions of miles on a daily basis and the company already collects that data to improve its services. In the future, the company plans to equip its vehicles with more sensing capabilities so they can create high definition 3D maps as well as training data for self-driving vehicles.

The transition won't happen overnight but Lyft says self-driving cars will make transportation cheaper and more efficient while also reducing emissions and congestion.