LYFT Inc (LYFT)

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Lyft Banks On Autonomous Cars, Food Delivery
By: TheStreet | December 16, 2021

• BThe rideshare company has recently deployed the first self-driving cars onto the streets of Miami.

In its efforts to expand and try new things, Lyft (LYFT) is branching out into a number of ventures — from self-driving car partners to restaurant delivery.

As part of a partnership with Ford (F) and Argo AI announced this summer, the ride-sharing platform has deployed the first batch of self-driving cars in Miami.

The move is meant to ease Lyft into the territory of autonomous driving by putting around 1,000 self-driving Ford vehicles equipped with Argo's artificial intelligence-based driving software onto the streets of Miami. Austin will follow sometime in early 2022.

As part of that July deal, Lyft also received 2.5% common equity of Argo AI in exchange for driver data from its network.

Earlier this week, Lyft also announced that it would be using its drivers to deliver restaurant food through a partnership with online ordering platform Olo (OLO).

Unlike the more well-known Grubhub (GRUB) or Uber Eats (UBER), Olo allows restaurants to use their own websites for placing orders while pairing them with a driver from a rideshare company.

"As a transportation-focused company, we aren't interested in building consumer-facing marketplaces for groceries or food, but we can add real value in delivery both for drivers and partners via Dispatch's frictionless process and the scaled national network of drivers on Lyft's platform," Justin Paris, head of Lyft Delivery, said in a media statement.

In the last year, (LYFT) shares have floundered somewhat and pushed the company to try new initiatives to remain competitive — currently down 19% year-over-year at $38.12, stock was at $47.28 at the start of 2021 and reached that year's high of $67.42 in March.

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