Lyft expands its Waymo robotaxi partnership in Nashville
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A Waymo robotaxi on Lower Broadway. Photo: Heather Diehl/Getty Images
Starting this week, Lyft riders in Nashville can be matched with a Waymo robotaxi as they crisscross the city.
Why it matters: If you use the Lyft app to catch a ride to concerts downtown, restaurants in Germantown or coffee shops in East Nashville, you might automatically get a Waymo that arrives empty and shuttles you to your destination without a driver.
- Nashville is the testing ground for the Waymo-Lyft partnership — the first city where riders can call a Waymo on the Lyft app.
State of play: Waymos are currently limited to the busy neighborhoods closest to the urban core. The robotaxi service area hasn't reached Bellevue, Antioch or Madison yet, although Waymo says expansions are coming.
Yes, but: Plenty of people prefer a human driver. The Lyft app will allow riders to decline Waymo rides.
The big picture: Nashville could be the nexus of a new era of expansion for robotaxis.
- The rideshare service provides Waymo with two elements it really needs: riders and the infrastructure needed to service its fleet.
The other side: Waymo's efforts to partner with Uber, on the other hand, are straining.
- Earlier this year, Waymo ended a three-year pilot with Uber in Phoenix, and it's talking about doing the same in Austin and Atlanta, per the Financial Times.
Zoom in: The key to the Nashville partnership is Flexdrive, Lyft's often-overlooked fleet management subsidiary acquired in 2020.
- Flexdrive will handle the charging, cleaning and maintenance of hundreds of Waymo vehicles at a new 80,000-square-foot depot set to open this fall near the airport.
- Lyft and Waymo have aligned their incentives around the crucial metric of keeping Waymo's expensive high-tech vehicles busy.
What they're saying: "We want to prove this model in Nashville and then take it to scale," Jeremy Bird, Lyft's executive vice president of global growth, tells Axios.
The bottom line: Lyft may never match Uber's size. But in the emerging robotaxi business, being smaller — and more willing to operate behind the scenes — could make Lyft exactly the kind of partner Waymo wants.
Reality check: Lyft isn't Waymo's only fleet management option. Waymo uses other partners elsewhere, including Avis, Avomo and Moove, and Uber has been investing heavily in its own AV fleet infrastructure.