In what is a highly ambitious goal set by the cab aggregator, Lyft has said that it wants to power as many as 1 Billion autonomous vehicle rides by 2025. The goal comes as part of the tech industry’s response to President Donald Trump pulling the US out of the Paris accords and also closely align with the company’s own business strategy. Indeed, there is a high probability that Lyft would have eventually announced this goal regardless of whether or not Trump exited the Paris accords.
So under the terms of its goal, Lyft wants to power 100 percent of the autonomous electric vehicles using its platform from 100 percent renewable energy. In other words, assuming that Lyft’s plans are realized, the company will make sure that every ride you take using its platform is backed by the promise of renewable energy. This is a pretty tall order and in order to make this come about, Lyft is starting from the very start.
For instance, the two cars the company plans to have on the Boston roads in partnership with Nutonomy by the end of the year will basically be Renault Zoe electrics. These cars have already been fitted with Nutonomy’s self-driving technology.
As far as the company’s goal of 1 Billion rides per year is concerned, well, that is a really tall goal. The company powered 160 million rides in 2016, so we are talking about a growth of over 600 percent. In my opinion, this kind of growth — particularly since Lyft is a US based company — is possible only if Lyft can usurp Uber from the domestic market, or if it also expands into international markets.
Lyft also said that it will do its best to ensure that a minimum of 5 million tons in C02 emission is saved annually, by 2025. This goal can well be achieved provided that Lyft manages to reach all of the other goals it has defined. With that said, these goals are easier said than realized and there are a lot of variables at play here. Nevertheless, if other companies also set goals like this, we might just manage to save the earth from Donald Trump and his buddies after all.
