Lyft Says Self-Driving Cars Will Dominate the Road in Five Years

According to Lyft’s view of the future of transportation.Lyft rides in.robot cars will outstrip those.driven by human drivers within the next five years in the U.S. The company early this year established a partnership with General Motors to develop a fleet of on-demand autonomous vehicles, paving the way for a pilot project involving the Chevrolet Bolt EV.

Zimmer’s announcements comes the week after Volvo and Uber grabbed headlines when they launched the public beta test of self-driving taxis in Pittsburgh. In doing so, Zimmer is also challenging Elon Musk’s predictions on how the future will instead be more about “car sharing” self-driving vehicles privately owned by individuals.

So how will Lyft achieve this third revolution? Unlike other autonomous projects by the likes of Google or Uber though, Zimmer plans to convert most of its fleet to driverless vehicles by 2021.

For those who scoff at the notion of giving up their cars, Zimmer points to Netflix, which made DVD ownership “obsolete”, and Spotify, which “made it unnecessary to own CDs and MP3s”.

Zimmer makes clear that he doesn’t think cars themselves are the problem, but how we use them, with the amount of time they remain parked rather than in use being incredibly inefficient.

“I wanted to write a long piece because this is the stuff we’ve been working about nearly 10 years now when we started Zimride in 2007”, Zimmer told Medium’s Darrell Etherington in an interview. Zimmer said that a change is coming in the thinking of people as they now think that it is simpler and cost effective to not own a auto. “By 2025, private auto ownership will all-but end in major United States cities”, he said. He says that will involve a process of testing “a fleet of autonomous cars that completes rides under 25 miles per hour on flat, dry roads”.

The latest move toward self-driving vehicles is not only aimed at strengthening Lyft’s position against Uber. Far from seeing private cars as a symbol of freedom, he argues, many Americans now consider a personal vehicle as a “ball and chain”-one that costs an average of $9,000 per year to own and maintain”. What began as a way to unlock unused cars, create economic opportunities and reduce the cost of transportation, has today become the way millions of Americans get around.

Lyft’s competitor Uber is now a forerunner in the US’ autonomous vehicle segment.

The new concept of self-driving cars from Lyft will be available soon.

Like many rivals, GM also sees a transportation revolution in the making, one that could mean fewer retail customers, especially in denser urban environments.