Lyft has “no plans to slow down [its] self-driving programs,” said David Baga, Chief Business Officer of the ride-hailing app.
“We remain focused on our self-driving program, so we continue to develop, and test, and eventually deploy self-driving,” he told Cheddar Thursday.
His comments come in light of Uber’s fatal driverless car crash in Arizona last week, which forced that company to hit the brakes on all its autonomous testing. Nvidia and Toyota paused their programs, too.
The Uber incident, thought to be the first involving a self-driving vehicle, also sparked a wide-ranging debate about whether the entire industry needs more oversight.
Ironically, though, Waymo, the self-driving unit of Google parent Alphabet, took the opportunity to jump further into its autonomous business, announcing a collaboration with Jaguar Land Rover this week to roll out driverless SUVs by 2020.
Jaguar’s Product Planning Manager Dave Larsen [reiterated](https://cheddar.com/videos/jaguar-exec-waymos-technology-would-have-avoided-ubers-fatal-crash) his faith that Waymo’s technology and software “would’ve been able to avoid” the tragedy that involved Uber’s car.
- **Related:** [Watch](https://cheddar.com/videos/first-look-at-the-waymo-powered-jaguar-i-pace-suv) Jaguar’s Dave Larsen give Cheddar a first look at the Waymo-powered I-PACE at the New York International Auto Show.
For its part, Lyft dove into the autonomous industry last year when it announced it will start creating the technology in-house. Prior to that, the company was working with third-parties like Ford and Boston-based nuTonomy, essentially offloading the larger costs of the projects.
Driverless tech aside, Lyft is also gaining ground on its main rival in the core ride-hailing business. As Uber has faced one scandal after another, Lyft is picking up the slack.
Its Business unit saw share of the corporate travel space rise to more than 18 percent in the fourth quarter, compared to 7.7 percent the year before. It also expects to hit a $1 billion run rate for revenue by the end of the year.
For full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/lyft-cbo-no-plans-to-slow-down-self-driving-technology).
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
