General Motors is investing $500 million in Lyft Inc. because they believe it will be crucial to the future for autonomous vehicles. The deal is the first in which a large car maker has joined forces with a ride-hailing company. This in part because Lyft services threaten auto sales as more urban commuters are using left instead of owning their own car.
Automakers are also quickly thinking and developing they own autonomous capabilities for the future. General Motors has said that they would work with oft to develop a self-driving-car system that could eventually let customers order a car on their smartphones and have the vehicle appear at their doorstep without requiring a driver.
The president of General Motors, Dan Ammann said in an interview, “We believe that the first large-scale deployment of autonomous vehicles will be in this kind of on-demand, ride-share platform”.
