British company Jaguar Land Rover, which is behind two of the most iconic car brands in history, announced today that they’re planning to invest $25 million into Lyft, in an attempt to help the business expands and develop their technologies, according to The Washington Post. Also, the same source mentioned that an entire fleet of vehicles will be received by the ride-hailing business, as part of the deal.
Behind the investment is InMotion Ventures, one of Jaguar Land Rover’s departments, with a focus on autonomous cars, as well as other related technologies.
More partnerships like this to be announced in the near future?
According to Sebastian Peck, InMotion Managing Director, this agreement is set to provide a “real-world platform helping us develop our connected and autonomous services”.
However, this isn’t the first deal of this type Jaguar Land Rover closes! Earlier this month, the manufacturer, through the same InMotion department, also invested in SPLT, a digital carpool business, based in Detroit. The company has a partnership with Lyft, providing non-emergency medical transport.
Lyft also announced that, alongside self-driving startup nuTonomy, they’re planning to debut a research program, in order to find out what methods passengers use to book and route a self-driving vehicle, as well as study the way they interact with it.
Uber, beware!
Currently, Lyft is looking forward to developing its business, taking advantage of Uber’s recent legal issues, not to mention their increasing interest in using autonomous cards in order to offer their services.
Based in San Francisco, the company is now present in over 300 cities and recently announce a partnership with automotive giant General Motors, with the main purpose of researching autonomous ride-hailing.
