Monday, January 4

General Motors pledges $500 million to Lyft for driverless taxi research

On Monday, General Motors and ride-sharing company Lyft announced a new partnership to develop a network of driverless taxis. GM has invested $500 million in Lyft as part of a $1 billion funding round. The partnership includes a seat for GM on Lyft’s board of directors.

Neither Lyft nor GM mentioned how soon they expected to realize their driverless taxi dream. In a press release, GM said it would work with Lyft to "leverage GM’s deep knowledge of autonomous technology.” Lyft, for its part, promised "to build a network of on demand autonomous vehicles that will make getting around more affordable, accessible and enjoyable."

GM’s labs have been testing the waters with autonomous concept cars, even hinting in October that the company’s strategy in 2016 would be “aggressive” and would include a fleet of self driving Chevrolet Volts. Lyft declined to comment publicly on how a fleet of driverless taxis would impact current Lyft drivers.

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