GM and Lyft Team Up for Robot Taxi Service

GM’s investment comes as part of a larger round of fundraising from Lyft, which has seen the Uber rival raise over $1 billion in financing.

General Motors announced it will be investing in Lyft Inc, the ride-hailing startup, in the amount of $500 million, which gives the startup a $5.5 billion valuation and a huge ally in its global battle with Uber Technologies.

As part of the new partnership, GM will hold a seat on Lyft’s board of directors. Lyft drivers will have access to GM cars and OnStar services, making the ride-sharing options on offer more attractive.

“We had a really common view of the future” with Lyft, said GM President Dan Ammann in an interview with Reuters. What’s more, the Detroit-based vehicle manufacturer will partner with Lyft to develop self-driving cars, which could be called up on-demand by customers.

Zimmer told the NY Times that autonomous cars will work best with the kind of plans GM and Lyft are employing. But in addition to the $500 million from GM, it also just raised $500 million from new and existing investors, for a total of $2 billion since 2013, it said in a blog post.

Ford is reportedly teaming up with Google on self-driving cars and that partnership is expected to be unveiled this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, according to Yahoo Autos, which cited anonymous sources. People have started buying less cars, after all it has always been “car ownership vs the network”. GM and RelayRides cut ties past year when RelayRides – now Turo – rebranded itself as a long-term car-sharing company, GM spokesman Dave Roman said.

The deal would immediately make GM a “preferred provider” of short-term use vehicles available for rent to today’s Lyft drivers. Expect to see more details on this joint project as the year goes on. By comparison, GM is valued at $53 billion and had $153 billion in revenue in 2014.

Lyft’s partnership with GM may be tough news for Uber. In fact, the ride sharing company managed to secure $100 million in capital from the Kingdom Holding Company.