Lyft has finally been able to start their self driving car trips and will be offering these rides in Boston. These self driving cars have been put together by NuTonomy, a new startup company in the automobile industry and Lyft is providing these vehicles for picking up passengers at the Seaport area in Boston.
It is not that these cars will not need any form of human or manual control, but there will be drivers behind the wheel who will be able to take control of the car in case there is some problem. This is thus providing the maximum safety possible to all passengers. Once an interested client lands at Seaport, he/she will have to use the Lyft app and will automatically be assigned to one of NuTonomy’s self driving cars and will now be able to go on their way.
Via a blog post, NuTonomy has commented on this deal with Lyft, saying that, “Our partnership with Lyft has two goals. “First, we want to let members of the public experience driverless vehicles firsthand, so they can better understand the impact this new technology will have on their lives. Second, based on feedback from pilot participants, NuTonomy’s engineers will adapt and improve our system, so that we can deliver an autonomous transportation experience that is extremely safe, efficient, and comfortable.” NuTonomy has recently been purchased by Delphi, and working under this automobile supplier, they have been developing various self driving cars since January and have been using the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park in Boston for test runs of these vehicles. However the park does not really have all conditions that normally the cars would have to go through out in the streets.
In addition to their partnership with NuTonomy, Lyft has also paired up with Drive.ai which is another company that manufacturers self driving cars and have been providing self driving taxis in San Francisco. Lyft has also come to an agreement with Ford and Waymo. This initiative by Lyft is to gain an advantage over their rivals, Uber whose services are already being questioned due to a number of accidents and legal charges.
Carolyn is a technology graduate and loves to write about anything related to technology as well as writes in others sectors. Carolyn is a professional writer with over 7 years of experience. Initially starting off as a programmer, Carolyn decided to combine her knowledge about technology and writing and that’s how she joined Reporter Expert.