Lyft announced plans for multiple autonomous vehicle (AV) partnerships to connect the Lyft community with future AV rides in the Lyft app, including a deployment in Atlanta with May Mobility.

Lyft and May Mobility will directly deploy AVs to the Lyft platform in Atlanta starting in 2025, enabling riders the opportunity to be matched with a fleet of autonomous Toyota Sienna minivans equipped with May Mobility’s autonomous technology. 

The deployment is aimed to scale over time across multiple markets.

“Our long-term goal is to expand the deployment of autonomous vehicles by working with cities and businesses, allowing more people to benefit from innovative, safe, and flexible mobility options,” said Edwin Olson, CEO of May Mobility. “By working with Lyft, we can scale our AV services, reach more communities, and continue to lead in bringing the benefits of autonomy to diverse environments.”

Bringing AVs to Atlanta

May Mobility selected Atlanta for the partnership due to the growing urban landscape and the city’s commitment to transportation innovation. By working with Lyft, they can expand their services while combating common challenges like traffic congestion, pollution, and inefficient use of resources.

In the coming months May Mobility and Lyft will work to finalize plans for their first deployment. These include the number of vehicles, mapping the service zone, and finalizing the hours of operation.

Olson explains Atlanta is only the beginning for May Mobility and Lyft’s partnership, as they both have the goal to expand to other markets in the future.

“With this new partnership, our commitment hasn't changed,” he said. “We will continue to do what we do best: provide communities with access to our patented autonomous driving technology to solve real-world transportation challenges. The pilot will start with autonomous vehicle operators and progress toward driver-out operations, though the timeline is still to be determined.”

How May Mobility AVs Work

May Mobility’s Avs use its Multi-Policy Decision Making (MPDM) technology to effectively navigate city streets.

Vehicles are equipped with a multiple lidar, radar, and cameras to feed MPDM a 360-degree view of its surroundings. Using this data, MPDM is able to virtually simulate thousands of possible scenarios every second.

As the AV detects vehicles, pedestrians, bikers, and pets, MPDM quickly analyzes the best maneuver to perform to efficiently and safely reach its destination.

Other Lyft Partnerships

Lyft is also partnering with Mobileye and Nexar to further their AV goals.

Lyft and Mobileye are planning to bring AVs to the Lyft network. 

Lyft will make its scaled rideshare platform available to all vehicles with Mobileye’s self-driving technology. Vehicles equipped with Mobileye Drive technology will hit the road “Lyft-ready,” giving small and large fleet operators seamless access to Lyft’s platform and network of riders to optimize their vehicles.

Nexar and Lyft will explore ways to harness the power of aggregated, anonymized marketplace and fleet data to help OEMs and AV companies built better and safer autonomous technology. By pairing Lyft data with Nexar’s hundreds of millions of hours of video footage, they can jointly contribute to a more complete data set for autonomous research and development.