Waymo has its own commercial self-driving ride-hailing service called Waymo One but the company did ink an agreement with Lyft back in May to bring its self-driving vehicles to the latter’s ride-hailing platform. It has now made some of its autonomous minivans available to Lyft riders.
The self-driving vehicles only undertake rides in a restricted small area just outside of Phoenix, Arizona, reports CNBC. Waymo has been testing its self-driving cars there already. The company’s had said last month that their agreement will see Waymo adding 10 of its autonomous cars to Lyft’s platform in Phoenix over the next few months.
The full 10 Waymo self-driving vehicles are reportedly still not available on the platform with only a few being put in service to offer autonomous rides to Lyft users. The service will only be offered to those Lyft customers that are planning to start and complete a ride within the geofenced area where Waymo has been allowed to operate its self-driving cars.
So when customers in those areas look for a ride on Lyft, they will be given the option to take a ride in a Waymo minivan or stick with a conventional vehicle with a human driver. Even though Waymo’s cars are completely autonomous, there’s always a human safety driver behind the wheel in order to take control should the need arise.
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