Lyft Sees a Future for Its Drivers in a Driverless World: Servicing Waymos

This week, Lyft riders in Nashville, Tennessee, who request a ride on the app might get matched with a new driver: a robot.

Lyft, like its competitor Uber, insists that its platform will be a “hybrid network” for a long while yet, as human drivers work alongside robot ones.

Of the 72 people who work at this Nashville depot, half of them are former Lyft drivers, the company says.

One of those former drivers, Jonathan Baines, started picking up Lyft riders in 2016 to help support himself as he worked as singer-songwriter.

Bird says having Waymos on the Lyft platform will give riders more choice, which is a good thing.