UPDATED 22:00 EDT / MARCH 14 2018

EMERGING TECH

Lyft signs deal with Magna to develop self-driving car systems

Ride-hailing startup Lyft Inc. is continuing its successful run of late, signing a new deal today with international automotive parts maker Magna International Inc. to develop self-driving car systems.

The deal, which includes Magna investing $200 million into Lyft, will see the two companies collaborating and jointly funding, developing and manufacturing self-driving car tech that can scale up.

The deal is described as being an “industry-first” thanks to its depth of integration. Lyft has previously worked in a less formal fashion with a number of other autonomous vehicle firms such as NuTonomy.

“Together with Magna, we will accelerate the introduction of self-driving vehicles by sharing our technology with automotive OEMs worldwide,” Lyft Chief Executive Officer Logan Green said in a statement. “This is an entirely new approach that will democratize access to this transformative technology.”

Under the hood, the deal will see Lyft lead the codevelopment of the self-driving tech at its Palo Alto engineering center while Magna will lead the manufacturing side. Intellectual property created as part of the deal will be jointly shared between the two companies, while Lyft will have access to Magna’s existing technology for its self-driving cars.

Magna may not be a household name, but the company is the largest automobile parts manufacturer in North America by sales and works with a wide variety of carmakers. On the self-driving car front, the company has been active as both a developer of self-driving vehicle technology and an investor in startups developing their own tech,. Most recently, it helped lead a $65 million investment in Israeli startup Innoviz Technologies Inc. It was previously rumored to be working with Apple Inc. on their self-driving vehicle efforts.

The news comes after it was reported yesterday that Lyft had passed $1 billion revenue in 2017 and that it’s growing nearly three times fast that rival Uber Technologies Inc.

Because of the complexity of the Lyft/ Magna deal, the partnership is subject to regulatory approval.

Photo: urbanists/Flickr

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