SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Lyft Inc has formed a self-driving car division, company executives said, a bold investment for the second-largest U.S. ride-services firm as it jockeys for position in the highly competitive autonomous vehicle race.
The executives said on Thursday the company would soon open a facility in Palo Alto, California, that would eventually be staffed by "several hundred" engineers. Lyft engineers will collaborate there with autonomous vehicle experts from other companies to build self-driving systems.
"We are putting down the accelerator significantly on investment on this," Raj Kapoor, chief strategy officer for Lyft, told reporters at its San Francisco headquarters.
The move marks a striking strategy change for Lyft, which said previously it would leave the building of self-driving systems to others while allowing partners to test their autonomous cars in Lyft's ride-hailing network.
Lyft previously announced partnerships with Alphabet's self-driving division, Waymo, technology company Nutonomy, and automakers General Motors Co and Jaguar Land Rover. Lyft's new effort could put it in direct competition with some of those partners.
