What Lyft and Aptiv learned from 100,000 self-driving car trips

Lyft and Aptiv’s partnership to develop self-driving cars for ridesharing has reached a major milestone. Aptiv cars operating on the Lyft network in Las Vegas have completed 100,000 trips. The two companies will not discuss scaling up the program, but said the Vegas deployment will serve as a “blueprint” for more widespread use of self-driving cars.

Passengers use the Lyft app to hail a self-driving car, just like they would any other ride. The cars — modified BMW 5 Series sedans — are operated by Aptiv (which places human backup drivers in each car) and use the company’s autonomous driving system. This arrangement has helped customers learn to trust the technology, a Lyft press release said. While Lyft does have its own in-house self-driving car program, partnering with Aptiv allowed the rideshare company to get self-driving cars on its network more quickly.
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