Lyft Gets Back into Robotaxis: Waymo Driverless Cars Show Up in the App in Nashville

Lyft reached a notable milestone this week: Waymo robotaxis became available in its app in Nashville. For a service that had spent several years staying on the sidelines of autonomous transport, this is its first real entry into the commercial driverless-ride market—that is, with no human behind the wheel.

The roles in the partnership are clearly divided. Waymo handles the cars themselves, while Lyft, through its subsidiary Flexdrive, manages the fleet: prepping the vehicles, repairs, infrastructure and depot operations. A rider in Nashville can hail a driverless car directly in the Waymo app or try their luck in the Lyft app, which matches them with a car based on availability.

A second run

Lyft has flirted with autonomous technology for a long time—through partnerships with Aptiv (now Motional) in Las Vegas, May Mobility in Atlanta, Baidu in London and Waymo in Phoenix. There was also an in-house effort: the Level 5 division, which took four years and millions of dollars. In 2021, at the height of consolidation in the young industry, Lyft sold that operation to a Toyota entity—Woven Planet Holdings—for 550 million dollars and took a pause, refocusing on its core ride-hailing business. But it didn't bury the idea.

The plans were laid out by Jeremy Bird, Lyft's executive vice president of growth, who oversees the international arm, premium services and autonomous transport. He avoided specifics about new cities, but noted that the company entered 2026 with two priorities: Waymo in Nashville and Baidu in London (where the commercial service hasn't launched yet). “Next year you'll see a lot of diversification,” he promised, referring to the expansion of both partnerships. “I think next year is going to be a big one for us.”

Betting on abroad

International markets are a prominent part of these plans. Bird called London “a fascinating market,” and throughout the conversation described Lyft itself, more than once, as a global company—a tangible shift from the recent past, when the focus was on the U.S. In choosing new countries, the service favors those where it can build a hybrid network right away—made up of driverless cars and cars with drivers—and where the regulatory path for autonomous transport is already open.

“Autonomous vehicles are how we think about the future,” Bird said. “Going into any market, we ask: is there room for driverless cars here?” It seems that the presence of such room now seriously influences which cities end up on Lyft's list of priorities.

Source: TechCrunch