Jaguar Land Rover tests upmarket ride-sharing with Lyft deal
UK brand agrees to sell vehicles to car-booking service to use in its existing network
Jaguar Land Rover has become the latest carmaker to pair with a car-booking app by investing $25m with US group Lyft and agreeing to test upmarket ride-sharing services and driverless cars.
The car industry is betting that vehicle ownership will fall in major cities in the long term as people switch away from traditional car usage and begin demanding transport as a service.
Several car groups have partnered with car-booking companies, in an attempt to develop technology and services together but also to give the traditional carmakers a new avenue for potential sales.
Under JLR’s deal, the British carmaker will sell Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles to Lyft to use in its existing network, as well as working on services that it might roll out in the future.
The partnership is an important step for JLR which, though prominent in the UK, is much smaller than competitors such as BMW, Daimler and Audi.
Sebastian Peck, the head of JLR’s transport services business InMotion, said the company will work with Lyft to develop “premium mobility solutions”.
The group will also be able to test its proposed services — including, it says, autonomous cars — with Lyft.
“We’re excited to join forces with Jaguar Land Rover and InMotion,” said John Zimmer, Lyft president and co-founder. “Lyft envisions a future where shared mobility will transform cities and improve people’s lives.”
Since it launched last year, JLR’s InMotion division has invested in SPLT, the Detroit-based digital carpool business, which works with Lyft to provide non-emergency medical transport.
JLR’s investment in Lyft was part of a wider fundraising in April, when it raised more than $500m at a valuation of $6.9bn to help it compete with rival Uber. During the fundraising, private equity group KKR joined the ranks of Lyft investors that also include General Motors and Chinese companies Alibaba and Didi Chuxing.
GM’s $500m investment into Lyft in 2015 was the first from a major carmaker, and similar moves across the industry came in the following months.