Lyft Eyes Robotaxi Launch in 2026

Lyft says it will launch a fleet of robotaxis, using self-driving technology from Intel's Mobileye, in Dallas in "as soon as 2026," with plans to scale to "thousands" of vehicles in additional markets in the months to follow. From a report: To signal its seriousness, the company tapped Marubeni, a Japanese conglomerate, to run fleet operations. Lyft's news comes after Uber dropped new details about its plan to feature Waymo's robotaxis on its platform in Austin and Atlanta later this year. And Tesla recently shared plans to launch a robotaxi service in Austin this summer.

Cognitive dissonance and confusion

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

So do we hate Lyft for ending the slavery of the gig economy or do we hate Lyft for replacing hard working humans with AI?

I would like to know the reason I hate Lyft.

I mean, no, not me, asking for a friend.

Re:

[ClickOnThis]

What the f*** does this story have to do with tariffs? Asking for myself.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

Lyft and Uber intentionally lost money at first so they could disrupt the taxi service and also become an entrenched service. Then once the taxi companies were curtailed Uber and Lyft jacked up prices leaving no competition. Don't forget they started out as a "ride sharing" service and morphed into a modern jitney.

These companies spent an actual fortune https://abc7.com/22-california... [abc7.com] just to get out of having to pay workers.

Re:

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

So the abusive and anti competitive taxi services got replaced by tech companies that just enslaved their employees in a different way and yet....

This is not helping. I was only asking which reason I should have to hate Lyft. I mean my friend wanted to know.

And now you throw in all this stuff about taxis and Uber. So I already hated taxis because they're the car rental mafia and abuse their drivers. Then I hated Uber and Lyft for disrupting the taxi mafia but liked them for modernizing taxi services but

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Can you please just tell me who I am supposed to hate this week and why?

Yourself, for making you look stupid.

I love "As soon as.."

[dmay34]

I absolutely LOVE "as soon as" language.

Sure, we'll walk on Mars AS SOON AS 2030.
We'll cure cancer AS SOON AS 2028.
Yes, mom, we plan to get pregnant AS SOON AS this fall.

Re:

[timeOday]

The one thing that saves this from being utterly nonsensical is "Uber dropped new details about its plan to feature Waymo's robotaxis on its platform." Managing their own fleet of Waymos could be a good role for Uber.

So sooner or later this is going to happen

[rsilvergun]

And we currently have something like 7 million people eeking out a living, if you can call it that, driving taxi service right now. And yes Uber claims the number is much lower but the way they do that is by ignoring people who use multiple apps.

These are people at the very bottom rung of society. You really can't get much lower outside of prison labor and migrant farm work. Meaning they don't really have any options.

So within the next 10 years we are going to have 7 million completely unemployable people on top of the ones we already have that we just kind of pretend don't exist. We're going to be looking around 25 to 30 million people that we just don't need.

Traditionally when the number gets that high somebody gives them rifles and points them at anyone who still has a job.

No I don't know what the solution to that upcoming problem is. I mean I do but I don't know a solution that Americans will stomach. But I know we better figure out something fast. Most of us here aren't so old that we aren't going to be dead before the shit hits the fan there

Re:

[Art Challenor]

It's worse than that. You need to keep money moving for the economy to be robust. If you give $1 to an Uber driver, chances are it will be spent, driving the economy. When the same $1 goes as profit to Lyft, the chance are it will go into some passive investment which doesn't help the economy at all. It's partly a problem with the tax system that doesn't deal well with capital. Encouraging the extremely wealthy to actually spend that wealth would be good policy. (And yes, there's some active reinvestmen

So fun fact

[rsilvergun]

The baby boomers are basically the only people in our economy here in the States who have any disposable income to speak of. As such pretty much every industry except food is dependent on them as consumers. For example 80% of all travel is done by baby boomers. I don't mean travel from travel agencies I mean literally all travel.

In about 5 or 6 years their generation is going to be too old to do anything but hang out in nursing homes waiting to die. If we're really lucky maybe we'll get 10 years

Howe

Re:

[Art Challenor]

You won't have to wait 5+ years. If DOGE is successful in removing $2T from the economy, collapse will follow fairly quickly. You have to assume that Musk/Trump know this and have a plan, such as not actually cutting $2T but redirecting that money to themselves and their wealthy buddies. However, for the reasons we agree above, that's unlikely to work well (most of the money will go into passive investment and the workers will have no disposable income).

Re:

[tsqr]

80% of all travel is done by baby boomers. I don't mean travel from travel agencies I mean literally all travel.

It would be useful if you would cite your source for that. According to Statista, [statista.com] the frequency of casual travel of adults in the US (as of April, 2024) is pretty similar over all age groups.

In about 5 or 6 years their [boomer] generation is going to be too old to do anything but hang out in nursing homes waiting to die.

5 years from now, the mean age of boomers will be about 71. Some of them will be hanging out in nursing homes waiting to die, but all or most of them? According to this, [cuanschutz.edu] the mean age for people entering care facilities is 84. Many of them were severely disabled for several years prior to that, receiving some form of car

Re:

[ClickOnThis]

I don't like it either when technology removes jobs from the economy, or at least significantly alters those jobs. But it is inevitable.

And I seriously doubt the people who are driving for Uber and Lyft are "completely unemployable" to do anything else.

You say you don't know the solution. I do: make sure everyone gets a good education so that they can change jobs as needed during their careers. And ensure there is a good social safety-net in place to help people weather periods of unemployment. I suspect yo

You better figure out a solution then

[rsilvergun]

Because like I said if you don't somebody's going to take those 30 million unemployed and hand them rifles and point them at you. Either that or you're going to be part of that throng of 30 million and you're going to pick up a rifle because what the hell else are you going to do?

Education is good but it's not going to solve the job shortage it's going to exasperate it. We're going to have a shitload of well-educated people and not enough jobs for them. This is a problem China has. They've been holding

Re: So sooner or later this is going to happen

[unami]

Sure but chauffeurs will be far from the only ones that will be replaced by robots in the medium future. It has been absolutely predictable for some years that we're steering toward a big, fast wave of automation and job-loss. I'd measure future politicians on what they have done today to deal with that.

Re:

[thegarbz]

The same has been said about every automation in history. The thing is the actual impact on society is simply not big as evidence by historical figures. We've been automating away the lowest rungs of society for over a century now. And yet, they are still there, still employed, with unemployment figures today not significantly different than the average over the past 100 years.

I don't know what the answer is either, but someone will find it, and we won't simply have 7 million people permanently out of work.

Re:

[misexistentialist]

unemployment figures today not significantly different than the average over the past 100 years

That's because if people don't get jobs after a while they stop being counted as unemployed. A larger and larger part of the population is no longer part of the labor force. Maybe everything will be fine when most people aren't working, but probably not, there is no easy mode setting in nature.

Re: So sooner or later this is going to happen

[flyingfsck]

You can employ these unemployables as border guards to deport unemployable foreigners and prevent yet more foreign unemployables from entering.

So much for the gig economy

[ebunga]

Suck it people just trying to make ends meet. Daddy's gotta jackpot this quarter.

so lift will own and run an big fleet of cars?

[Joe_Dragon]

so lift will own and run an big fleet of cars?

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

Good question. My guess is they will use Hollywood accounting techniques to obfuscate who actually owns vehicles in case things go wrong.

Re:

[Joe_Dragon]

even if things don't go wrong What happens if some local franchise goes under due to have to many cars and to low income to pay for them?
They rackup lots of unpaided tickets?

Johnny Cab

[davidwr]

One of these robotaxi companies really needs to pay off Holywood, er, I mean, license the name so we can actually take a ride in a Johnny Cab.

I totally approve

[OppMan29]

With Robotaxis you don't have to tip! it should bring the cost down too.