Self-driving cars are a common sight in Silicon Valley but not something New Yorkers
are used to. That could soon change.
Lyft announced Tuesday that it's opening a New York City office and in a hint about what it may be working on, the company said some of its engineers there will be working on its self-driving car tech. The company didn't confirm it's bringing autonomous vehicles to the city, however.
Lyft is also staffing its New York office with engineers working on infrastructure and marketplace efforts. The ride-hailing company said the diversity of New York's neighborhoods and urban layout make it an ideal place to test out its technology.
"This space makes it possible for us to draw on the incredible pool of talent in NYC to continue improving the experience passengers and drivers across the country have every day," Nancy Losey, Lyft's head of office operations, said in a statement.
Up until a few months ago, Lyft had announced only a handful of partnerships with self-driving companies, like Nutonomy, General Motors and Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Google parent company Alphabet. But in July it said it was starting to work on its own autonomous vehicle software and hardware. https://www.cnet.com/news/lyft-hints-its-self-driving-cars-may-come-to-nyc/
