Woven Planet Buys Lyft's Self-Driving Car Unit for $550 Million

Tina Joseph
· 3 min read
Flying cars and
self-driving
cars are almost always imagined in our vision for the future. There are many automakers trying to make autonomous vehicles (AVs) safe to use. Once they are, they can help reduce or eliminate human error from driving, and maybe even make
car insurance
cheaper.
Making that happen, though, is going to take a lot of testing. Lyft, a rideshare company, has decided to leave it to the experts. They have sold the progress they’ve made in developing autonomous cars to Woven Planet; a company that focuses on exactly these types of driving technology.
Self-driving rideshare vehicles still need a lot of safety testing | Twenty20

What is Woven Planet purchasing from Lyft?

According to the
Business Wire
, Woven Planet is dedicated to accelerating the adoption and safety of AVs. Woven Planet is acquiring the team of over 300 Lyft engineers and data scientists, called Level 5, that was working on autonomous driving.
Woven Planet has also signed commercial agreements with Lyft to use their Lyft system and fleet data. As mentioned on
Lyft’s
website, this includes prediction models, mapping, and sensor data. Lyft will receive $550 million overall for the transaction.
You may not have heard of Woven Planet, but they are owned by
Toyota
—one of the biggest automakers in the world. Woven Planet works with a team of researchers at Toyota Research Institute for software development, advanced safety technology, and autonomous driving.
Let Jerry find your price in only 45 seconds
No spam · No long forms · No fees
Find insurance savings

Self-driving cars and Lyft

MORE: 3D Technology is Finally Making an Impact on the Insurance Industry
Lyft has been hoping for years to use a self-driving fleet to help increase revenue. Now partnered with Woven Planet, they’ve created the Lyft Autonomous team to bring AV technology to the market.
Lyft Autonomous was formerly Open Platform, a team that Lyft put together in 2016 to work on implementing and scaling self-driving technology. The Level 5 team was a division that focused specifically on AV technology for cars.
They expect to save $100 million of annualized non-GAAP operating expenses on research and development. John Zimmer, Lyft Co-Founder and President, said "Not only will this transaction allow Lyft to focus on advancing our leading Autonomous platform and transportation network, this partnership will help pull in our profitability timeline."

Are we getting self-driving cars soon?

Lyft was not alone in wanting to replace drivers with autonomous cars.
Uber
was trying to achieve this too, but they recently reported selling their self-driving unit to a start-up called Aurora.
However, automakers are also working on self-driving cars. As the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) points out, automated driving systems bring many safety benefits. Many cars already come with technology to help you stay in your lane, and prevent you from bumping into a car that’s suddenly stopped.
Self-parking cars have already been tested, and other partially automated safety features such as adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assist technology are in the works. The NHTSA expects us to have fully automated safety features and highway autopilot after 2025.
Buying insurance can be hard to navigate with all the changes in technology, but
Jerry
can help. The free app is your ultra-talented car insurance broker for life. It takes less than a minute to sign up and you’ll be presented with competitive rates from up to 45 top providers.

Easiest way to compare and buy car insurance

√
No long forms
√
No spam or unwanted phone calls
√
Quotes from top insurance companies
Find insurance savings