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⚡ This Week’s Big Charge
🚗 Lyft Exec Jeremy Bird On Standing Out In An Autonomous Future
We often forget how remarkable it is that, in much of the world, you can tap your phone and a driver just shows up to take you anywhere. Companies like Uber and Lyft certainly have their controversies, from labor disputes to traffic concerns. But they’re also everyday tech miracles millions rely on for mobility.
Yet the “driver” part of my sentence above almost feels quaint when Waymo can’t go a week without announcing it’s bringing autonomous taxis to another city.
Human drivers aren’t disappearing anytime soon, and widespread full autonomy is still probably decades off. But 2025 proved the tech is real and advancing quickly. So how does a ride-hailing network adapt, especially against a much bigger global rival?
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I caught up with Jeremy Bird, former politico turned Executive Vice President of Global Growth at Lyft, to hear more about how the company—still far behind Uber in revenue, scale and valuation—aims to navigate the AV era.
“We’re completely embracing it,” Bird said. “I think we have done the hard work of defining the hybrid strategy that needs to shape our future, [and] also building those partnerships and relationships that we think are critical.”
That means no longer trying to develop that technology in-house. And it means that someday, “drivers” could be the ones owning the AVs that ferry riders for Lyft.
“We want to do what we do best, which is to be the marketplace,” Bird said. “We want to operate the network, and we want to be asset-light as much as possible.”
🛻 The State Of Play At Lyft:
Lyft primarily operates in North America but is expanding more in Europe. It’s often compared to Uber, which is much more global and does about four times more rides daily.
Like Uber and General Motors in the 2010s AV 1.0 boom, Lyft once had its own, in-house autonomous vehicle division. But it proved to be capital-intensive with unclear returns.
Lyft later sold that operation to Toyota’s Woven technology arm. It signed on with Argo AI, but that company shuttered in 2021. Another partnership with Hyundai joint venture Motional to deploy AV taxis at scale hit pause last year.
After the industry’s decade of false starts, things are different with AVs in 2025, Bird said.
“It feels like it really has kind of started to bust open,” he said. “The speed at which other people will be able to develop safe and reliable and affordable AV technology is going to be, I think, mind-blowing in the next decade or so.”
And by “other people,” Bird means the companies Lyft is already teaming with right now.
🤝 Lyft’s AV Partner Roster Is An Interesting One:
Waymo (which is also partnering with Uber), starting with Nashville in 2026.
May Mobility’s Toyota hybrid minivans in Atlanta.
Autonomous shuttles made by longtime German automotive supplier Benteler.
Mysterious newcomer Tensor, which aims to sell Waymo-style fully autonomous cars to private citizens, including rideshare duty on services like Lyft.
Chinese tech giant Baidu, for deployments across Europe. Bird noted how advanced China’s AV players have become in particular.
“The technology we've seen from Baidu is incredible,” Bird said. “What the U.S. audience doesn’t see is all the things happening in the rest of the world.”
It’s a lot of variety, but that’s the point. “You’re going to see all these different use cases” from different partners on the Lyft network, Bird said. “There will be multiple providers in different cities.”
Then we’ll get to see who does what best: “Who has the best tech, who has the tech that's going to get past regulatory approval, that's going to be the safest, the most reliable, and most affordable,” he said.
💁♀ What About Human Drivers?
Bird said Lyft has tried to get ahead of driver concerns over losing jobs to AVs—something he said was unlikely.
He said 1.6 million people drove for Lyft last year in the U.S. The company must look at the impact on that workforce, Bird said.
“I think it's very disingenuous and also irresponsible to look at the future and ignore that conversation,” Bird said. A hybrid model of human drivers and AVs will be around “for the long future, as I can see it.”
That will include a day when AVs are owned by private citizens, as individual cars—not unlike Elon Musk’s predictions years ago—or something like limousine fleets.
“Long-term, drivers will own AVs,” Bird said. “As the cost goes down, if these get produced more, then the owner of the asset will be the ‘driver.’”
❓ How Does Lyft Win At AVs?
Bird rejected the framing of a competition with a giant like Uber.
“If you're thinking there's some fixed pie of rideshare riders, that’s the wrong way to think about it,” he said. “The pie should grow exponentially,” as autonomy creates new ways to get around that we haven’t imagined yet.
For Lyft, that means not being a provider of AVs, but of being a robust network where they’re deployed.
🧠 My Take:
Lyft’s current strategy—leaning into its vast network for fleet management—is far smarter than building AVs in-house.
People know the brand, and they know and use the app. That alone is a big advantage for AV use. (Try launching a new ride-hail app in 2025. See if anyone uses it.)
But as with any other AV venture, especially for a ride-hailing network, it’s worth asking: when does the money show up? What really is the business case here? They’re all loss-leaders for now.
On that front, Bird demurred. “We'll see those costs go down, we'll see the utilization go up,” Bird said. “Hopefully, we'll be able to drive the price of the ride down, which means more rides.”
“Our main priority now is to provide the best customer experience,” he said. “Over time, we can worry about the economics.”
📰 More Stories That Matter
The 400-mile BMW iX3 has debuted to rave early reviews. It debuts at a tough time for EVs; can it find an audience in America? [InsideEVs]
Did automakers try and launch too many EVs for their lineups at once, rather than focusing on strong volume-winners? My colleague Mack Hogan argues yes. [InsideEVs]
Electric door handles, pioneered by Tesla and copied by almost the entire auto industry, are now a safety problem across the board. [Bloomberg]
📡 On My Radar
In a blow to both EVs and saving money at the pump, President Trump will significantly weaken fuel economy regulations. But people will demand answers if—or when—this fails to make cars actually cheaper. [New York Times]
General Motors loves to tout its Silicon Valley hires, but it struggles to keep them. Even execs who headlined its recent New York tech showcase are now out. [TechCrunch]
In unwelcome news for any traditional automaker, China’s BYD keeps proving to be a juggernaut. Export sales beat analyst expectations yet again. What’s next for BYD in 2026? [Bloomberg]
South Korea finally has a tariff deal with the U.S. at 15%. Too bad it planned investments at 0%. What does that mean for future EVs from the Hyundai Motor Group, among other things? [Car and Driver]
🔌 Charging News
This is a cool story: how tribal nations built EV chargers across North Dakota, bridging a crucial charging gap in the Midwest. [New York Times]
BYD is getting serious about Europe. It’s hiring at least two roles to build out its Flash Charging network, which can recharge an EV in minutes. [InsideEVs]
Maryland is gearing up for more enforcement of quality and uptime in public EV chargers. But this comes with a $150 annual fee per port. Will operators choose to dump them instead? [Maryland Matters]
Ionna has opened four new Rechargeries in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, and North Carolina. [The Weekly 1.21]
The state of Georgia has been awarded $24.4 million to build EV charging stations along highways. [Savannah Now]
The hot new thing in plug-in hybrids: DC fast charging like an EV. This Lynk & Co SUV can do a 10% to 80% charge in 30 minutes. [InsideEVs]
Mercedes’ High-Power Charging network just hit a major milestone: more than 500 fast-charging ports are now live across North America, with the 500th opening in Birmingham, Alabama. [via LinkedIn]
🔋 Battery Industry News
Hyundai showcased progress on its $800 million battery R&D center in South Korea, due to be completed by the end of 2026. [InsideEVs]
Meanwhile, Hyundai and Korean battery partner LG Energy—both of which have huge manufacturing bases in America—would really, really like to see some consistency from this White House. [Nikkei Asia]
Collectively, China’s CATL and automaker BYD made 55% of the world’s total EV batteries between January and October. [CnEVPost]
Malaysia's largest car manufacturer, Perodua, launched its first EV this week. It’s $19,000, but the battery is sold (or leased, really) separately. [Bloomberg]
EV battery recycling is a promising industry. But researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee think they can turn them into fertilizer as well. [Spectrum News]
🤖 Autonomy News
Nvidia released new open-source software aimed at speeding up the development of self-driving cars. This includes open physical AI models and tools to support research. Any takers? [Nvidia Blog]
Austin’s school district has asked Waymo to stop operations during school bus hours, saying the AVs keep passing stopped buses. [Austin American-Statesman]
Dallas gets another AV taxi service. Newcomer Avride has launched safety-driver-operated Ioniq 5s with Uber: [Axios Dallas]
A physician offers a medical case for more self-driving cars, if they can truly be safer than humans: “We may be on the path to eliminating traffic deaths as a leading cause of mortality in the United States.” [New York Times]
At the same time, critics accuse Waymo of getting too aggressive on the road: “making illegal U-turns and flooring it the second the light goes green.” And the company admits it’s stepping up how “assertive” they are. [Wall Street Journal]
🧠 AI News
Big stuff next week: Rivian will host an Autonomy & AI Day event, where it’s expected to unveil a raft of new features and a future AV roadmap. [Rivian Tracker]
Automotive News had a big package on the impact of AI investments in the auto industry. The results so far? Unclear. [Automotive News]
On the dealer side, AI is being used to track new vehicle stock and even answer phones and schedule service appointments. [Automotive News]
An interesting angle on the AI boom: what if language models—based on processing huge amounts of linguistic data—are a dead end? [The Verge]
This Swiss firm promises faster car design to match China’s speeds through AI. [Wards Auto]
📤 Spread the Charge
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❓ How’s My Driving?
This is a work in progress, so all feedback is welcome. Send me your thoughts anytime.
💡 Did You Know?
Autonomous cars are almost as old as cars themselves. Engineer Francis Houdina built a radio-controlled car called the “American Wonder” that drove through New York City with no one behind the wheel—way back in 1925.
Until next time,
—Patrick George