GM Invests $500 Mln In Lyft Ride-share Platform

Here’s a huge development on all of those fronts: General Motors announced today it will invest $500 million in ride-sharing service Lyft and partner with the San Francisco startup for a network of autonomous on-demand cars. Rather than stay neutral in the battle between Uber and Lyft, GM invested because of the “level of integration and cooperation that will be required, particularly for the longer term nature of this”, he said in a phone interview. GM also becomes Lyft’s preferred vehicle provider, improving chances that drivers will be behind the wheel of a Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, or Buick. It’s also fun to imagine that GM president Daniel Ammann and Icahn Enterprises will both sit on Lyft’s board hoping no one brings up that one time Uncle Carl said he was gonna buy all that GM stock but then, like, totally didn’t and instead dumped every single share. Lyft operates in 190 US cities, although it recently formed partnerships with ride-sharing services in China and India.

“GM is the largest automaker in the US, so it made a lot of sense”, said Lyft president and cofounder John Zimmer.

Founded in 2012, Lyft links prospective passengers with local drivers using a smart phone application.

“We certainly see an opportunity to work together through those relationships”, Ammann said.

Despite various companies’ best efforts to develop driverless cars, there remain many barriers to widespread adoption, critics argue.

The investment, part of a $1 billion financing round for Lyft, is the biggest move by an automaker to date when it comes to grappling with the meteoric rise of the ride-hailing industry.

“Do we want to deploy the resources and people to do everything ourselves, or get there faster by working in partnership?” We wait with bated breath for the dozen or so billion dollar venture rounds Uber will raise in response. By comparison, GM is valued at $53 billion and earned $153 billion in revenue in 2014.

“We think there’s going to be more change in the world of mobility in the next five years than there has been in the last 50”. And, GM plans to introduce its Super Cruise advanced driver-assist technology on the 2017 Cadillac CT6.

You have to admire the pure synergy of it all; ride-sharing + driverless cars = RIDE-SHARING DRIVELESS CARS.

GM’s stock was down about 3 percent around 12:20 p.m. Monday.