Lyft to Offer Self-Driving Rides in Las Vegas During CES The ride-hailing app, in partnership with autonomous driving technology company Aptiv, plans to offer 'fully automated point-to-point ride-hailing' services at the show.
This story originally appeared on PCMag
CES attendees will have a new option to get from point A to point B this year: an autonomous Lyft.
The ride-hailing app, in partnership with autonomous driving technology company Aptiv (formerly known as Delphi Automotive), plans to offer rides in self-driving cabs during the annual tech convention next week.
The trial runs from Jan. 9 to 12, and is available to all Lyft passengers in Las Vegas. The companies will make autonomous rides from the Las Vegas Convention Center's Gold Lot to more than 20 destinations throughout the city. There will be a driver in the front seat of the vehicle, ready to take over if anything goes wrong, as well as an "in-car host" to answer questions.
The companies plan to integrate Aptiv's automated driving platform with Lyft's dispatching technology. The partnership comes after Lyft last year announced plans to let self-driving car manufacturers and technology developers plug into its network for insights based on the company's nearly one million rides per day. Lyft also recently launched an automated driving pilot in Boston with nuTonomy, an autonomous vehicle startup Aptiv acquired in November.
"This partnership represents a real-life application of scalable, automated driving technology that will have a significant impact on improving safety, emissions and urban congestion challenges," Aptiv President and CEO Kevin Clark said in a statement. "Aptiv's automated driving platform is the most advanced automated system available and combined with Lyft's intuitive user app will allow CES attendees to have a true point-to-point self-driving experience. It is an exciting demonstration of the future of mobility at work."
Hopefully Lyft's cars fare better than an autonomous shuttle that hit the Las Vegas strip last year. On its first day, the shuttle got into a fender bender, in part because it couldn't honk at the big-rig that accidentally backed into it.
