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General Motors to Invest in Lyft in Order to Create Autonomous Taxis

The new year comes with great news for Lyft, the world’s second placed ride-hailing service, as giant company General Motors announced a long-term alliance to create an integrated network of on-demand self-driving vehicles in the U.S., followed by an investment of $500 million in the enterprise.
Lyft-GM partnership 5 photos
Photo: General Motors
Lyft-GM PartnershipLyft-GM PartnershipLyft-GM PartnershipLyft-GM Partnership
This huge amount of money will help Lyft’s growth and will also offer GM a seat on the company’s board of directors.

Dan Ammann, GM President, sees the ”future of personal mobility as connected, seamless and autonomous” and thinks this new deal will help implement this vision more rapidly.

According to John Zimmer, president and co-founder of Lyft, together with GM, the ridesharing company will expand its knowledge in transportation and will build a better future.

As this new agreement states, the two companies will work together and create a network of on-demand autonomous vehicles, with GM as the preferred provider of short-term used cars to Lyft drivers through rental hubs in a number or U.S. cities.

By allowing drivers and customers access to GM’s wide variety of cars and OnStar services, this partnership will help create a richer ride-sharing experience both for drivers and passengers.

Also, a keynote of the deal is that these two companies will provide each other’s customers with personalized mobility services and experiences.

This business move comes just a few weeks after Lyft announced it was trying to attract $500 million in funding to sustain its growth. The carpooling company had a terrible start in 2015, as it lost $127 million in the first half of the year. The sun rose again on the company’s street after it managed a comeback by recording a gross revenue of $1billion in key markets such as San Francisco.

The battle for the best ride-hailing company is now fought between Uber and Lyft, after Sidecar had its final ride on December 31, 2015, mostly because it got harder and harder to keep up with the other two giants.
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