Alliance With Lyft Can Bring Autonomous Vehicles to Market ‘Quicker Than Anyone Else,’ GM CEO Says

The $500 million investment that General Motors made last month in the ride-sharing service Lyft (see 1601040068) “is very significant because we believe, together, we can work and put an autonomous fleet of sharing vehicles available for use quicker than anyone else,” GM CEO Mary Barra said on a Wednesday earnings call. GM’s strategic alliance with Lyft will “in the short term” allow GM “to capitalize on providing and being a preferred provider for short-term-use vehicles for Lyft drivers that will support not only General Motors' performance, but also Lyft's performance,” Barra said. “We now are in the midst of an industry that is being disruptive and we are aggressively leveraging our technology leadership and our global resources to lead that disruption,” she said. “We'll continue to strengthen our core business and we'll also continue to invest in game changers that are necessary for GM to lead the future of personal mobility.”