After coronavirus shutdown, self-driving cars on Lyft will pick up passengers again
You can order a self-driving car on Lyft again.
The company paused its autonomous taxi program, which only operates in Las Vegas, in March because of the coronavirus pandemic. Starting Thursday, the fleet will be picking up passengers again. Before the shutdown, robotaxis on Lyft had completed more than 100,000 autonomous trips.
The sensor- and camera-loaded BMWs have a new logo and branding. That’s because earlier this year, Aptiv and Hyundai Motor Group launched an autonomous driving joint venture called Motional.
You May Also Like
Everything else is pretty much the same as it's been since 2018 when the program started, but now there are COVID-19 safety measures in effect. The Lyft-Motional cars all have a safety driver, so there's now a partition between the front and back seats, everyone has to wear a mask at all times, and the cars will be cleaned between rides, after driver shifts, and at the end of each day.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Ford's Argo AI partnership for its autonomous program, which does not yet offer rides to the public, also started testing its newest vehicles this week. It's been back on the road since May with its previous iteration of third-gen hybrids.
Topics Self-Driving Cars COVID-19 lyft
Sasha is a news writer at Mashable's San Francisco office. She's an SF native who went to UC Davis and later received her master's from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She's been reporting out of her hometown over the years at Bay City News (news wire), SFGate (the San Francisco Chronicle website), and even made it out of California to write for the Chicago Tribune. She's been described as a bookworm and a gym rat.
