*By Hope King* Lyft is a company trying to "improve lives through transportation." That's according to Jody Kelman, a product lead on the company's self-driving car team. During a panel discussion in New York City Wednesday evening, Kelman argued for a future where we stop spending [$9,000 every year on owning a car](https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/total-cost-owning-car/), have more green spaces and fewer parking lots, and gain more independence... especially as it relates to an aging population who eventually has to give up driving rights ー which includes her mother. "I do *not* want to have that fight with her," Kelman joked on stage. As Uber's star falls and Lyft's rises, investors and consumers are paying more attention to what Lyft sees for the future of transportation. The company recently raised another round of funding led by Fidelity Management and Research worth $600 million, valuing the 6-year-old start-up at [$15.1 billion](https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/27/lyft-15-billion-600-million-funding-round/). Lyft's share of the ride-hailing market in the U.S. grew to [35 percent this spring](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/14/lyft-market-share-051418-bosa-sf.html), up from 20 percent in the past 18 months. And the company recently [acquired the largest bike-share company](https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/2/17526892/lyft-buys-motivate-bike-sharing-expansion) in the country, Motivate. Taggart Matthiesen, head of Product, Autonomous, at Lyft told Cheddar in an exclusive interview before the panel discussion, that the company's growth is focused on making transportation more affordable and reliable. "Self-driving, we see, is part of the future -- it's not the only part," Matthiesen said. "What we're seeing in this transportation industry is this ownership model moving to more of this 'Transportation-as-a-Service' model." He explained that self-driving is not something the company necessarily needs right now ー it's more about understanding the technology for the future so that the company can slip it into its platform down the road. "We're looking at it collectively, focused more on passengers and transportation," Matthiesen said when asked how the company prioritizes working with partners including Aptiv and [Magna](https://blog.lyft.com/posts/lyft-x-magna-to-scale-self-driving-technology) versus developing the technology in-house. "We don't think a single company is going to win here," he continued. "Our goal is to slowly and surely educate passengers and the public and work with the technology in a collective way that brings it to a point where we can insert it at scale into our network." The efforts are still in an "infancy" stage but are "absolutely part of our strategy ー one of the key pillars," Matthiesen said. Lyft has already seen early success from its self-driving strategy. The company on Wednesday announced a milestone of 5,000 paid rides in Las Vegas through its [partnership with Aptiv](https://blog.lyft.com/posts/lyft-aptiv-5000). "People are absolutely loving it," Matthiesen said. According to Lyft, 96 percent of those passengers say they want to ride again. The rides, which began at the beginning of the year, are opt-in. A safety driver and a safety engineer sit in the car during the rides. "These cars have done hundreds of thousands of miles in these specific areas," he said. "These cars are really competent, and there's a lot of trust there. We're doing it in small pockets, focused on trust and safety first." Matthiesen, who has two children ages 7 and 10, hopes they won't need their drivers' license in a few years. "I would love a future where they have the option and opportunity to take any mode of transportation, be it bikes, scooters, Lyfts ... That's really what I'm focusing on." For part one of the interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/lyft-aptiv-mark-self-driving-milestone). For part two [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/ride-sharing-in-the-autonomous-world).
