The idea of driverless cars is getting more and more popular. Uber already plans to launch unmanned taxis by 2020 and other companies don’t sit idle. A well-known service Lyft, one of the largest competitors of Uber, announced that it will use its own unmanned vehicles.
As for now, the company signed a contract with a startup Drive.ai, specializing in software for autopilot vehicles.
The first cars with an autopilot will start taking passengers from San Francisco. Of course, the majority of cars will still be driven by people – Lyft will use only a few vehicles. An unmanned taxi can still be called with the mobile app but there is a small detail – the driver will be in the car in case something goes wrong.
Of course, he won’t be driving – he’ll be there for the safety of passengers.
In addition, Lyft doesn’t plan to completely switch to autonomous cars in the future. After all, a driver can do many things that are not available to artificial intelligence or autopilot systems.
Nevertheless, Lyft cooperates with the developers of autopilot software and maps for autonomous driving systems. In July this year, the company started working together with a startup Lvl5. Lyft drivers will record their routes on DVRs, and Lvl5 engineers will use the footage to create their own three-dimensional maps.
