Taxi-ordering giant Lyft and autonomous vehicle technology company Argo AI now officially offer public taxi service in Austin, Texas. This is the second city in which Lyft and Argo operate a commercial taxi bot service after Miami, which launched in December.
On Thursday, the company said in a blog post that passengers in Austin will have the option to choose a driverless ride directly in the Lyft app for the same price as a regular Lyft ride. The app will enable customers to unlock the car doors, start the ride, and contact customer support. This may seem strange at first, especially since there will actually be two people sitting in the driver and passenger seats observing the ride for safety reasons.
Image credits: Lift
News of the Austin launch is certainly expected from Lyft and Argo — the two companies, along with supporter Argo and customer Ford, have announced a plan to launch Lyft’s network of at least 1,000 self-driving vehicles in a number of cities over the next five years, starting in Austin and Miami . But the launch has likely been on high gear since major competitor Cruise revealed its plans to launch a driverless passenger service in Austin before the end of the year. Cruise is also seeking a launch in Phoenix, Arizona, where Waymo has built driverless robotic transportation and delivery operations, where it is expanding in a bid to increase revenue.
Lyft and Argo have largely moved away from Cruise’s home base, San Francisco, where other competitors like Waymo and Zoox have focused on operations, and where Cruise launched a fully commercial driverless transportation service this summer. Instead, companies have settled on other US cities with less competition and more favorable regulatory environments.
Last month, Lyft and Motional, the AV joint venture between Aptiv and Hyundai, also launched a fleet of fully automated Ioniq 5 taxis for driverless transfers in Las Vegas. Separately, Argo is actively testing in seven cities globally, including Palo Alto; Detroit. Pittsburgh. Washington, DC; and Hamburg, Germany.
The companies aren’t sharing Austin’s business hours yet, but an Argo spokesperson said its fleet of an unspecified number of Ford Escape hybrids will operate during “daylight hours.” Argo and Lyft also didn’t say when they expect to remove the safety driver for business operations in Miami or Austin, but Argo has been testing fully driverless operations in both cities with employees since May.
A Lyft spokesperson told TechCrunch that driver removal will depend on safety performance data, an appropriate level of acceptance by the community and the regulatory environment.
from San Jose News Bulletin https://sjnewsbulletin.com/the-argo-ai-robotic-hub-is-officially-available-via-lyft-in-austin-techcrunch/
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