Magna and Lyft successfully undertake public road testing of Level 5 Autonomous vehicle

Magna, a mobility technology company and one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, delivered an update on its industry-first multi-year collaboration with Lyft, during a press conference at the 2019 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

The partnership’s team of nearly 300 engineers is co-developing a scalable Autonomous Software Stack and Kit Hardware. In its first year of collaboration, the team has achieved several milestones including the completion of public road testing. That testing included a public autonomous ride-sharing pilot with Level 5 vehicles for Lyft employees. This road test traveled the route between the Level 5 facility in Palo Alto and a Caltrain Station in Northern California.

The real-time mapping scenarios and data leveraged during this initial pilot has already provided the team with valuable insights as they continue to prepare the technology for broader testing situations.

“We’ve found a formula that works and it is business-first partnerships like our collaboration with Lyft that will play a key role on the road to a new transportation ecosystem,” said Swamy Kotagiri, Magna Chief Technology Officer. “By jointly funding, developing, and manufacturing autonomous vehicles, we are democratizing and accelerating autonomous vehicle development.”

Magna and Lyft jointly share created IP and utilise Lyft data to improve systems. In addition to self-driving vehicles that will be deployed on Lyft’s own ridesharing network in the coming years, Magna has the ability to deploy the technologies across a wide-range of use cases to benefit the entire global mobility ecosystem.

“Lyft’s network combined with Magna’s automotive expertise has helped us reach major milestones on an aggressive timeline, which ultimately helps us bring the technology to market faster,” said Lyft Chief Strategy Officer Raj Kapoor. “We look forward to our continued partnership with Magna and what’s to come in 2019.”