Lyft CEO: Robotaxis Are Not Replacing Human Drivers Anytime Soon

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Lyft’s CEO, David Risher, is apparently not as bullish on robotaxis taking over as many Waymo and Tesla fans are. At the Web Summit event in Lisbon, Portugal, last week, where there were 71,000 attendees and you can imagine many of them were AI fans and robotaxi bulls, Risher argued that robotaxi tech wasn’t ready for a mass takeover, regulations weren’t ready, and even consumers weren’t ready.

“That will be the case for years and years and years to come,” he said. Hmmm, that sounds like a lot of years. “The [automakers] aren’t entirely ready. The technology isn’t entirely ready for fog or snow or heavy rain or whatever it is. People, riders aren’t necessarily excited about it [and] regulators aren’t necessarily enthusiastic about it in every place,” Risher added.

Getting more specific, Risher doesn’t think even 10% of Lyft’s business will be served by robotaxis in 2030.

I’m not sure about the first two obstacles Risher mentioned — the tech and the regulations — but I’m surprised by the third one. As we’ve reported in the past, people have been willing to pay more to ride in a self-driving Waymo. Our own experiences with Waymo vehicles have also been so pleasant that we can also imagine spending a little more for the peace and solitude. Perhaps there are many people who are scared of riding in a driverless taxi, or who want help with their bags, or who have some other preference for a human-driven taxi. However, I have a hard time believing that’s a huge majority of potential customers. Risher thinks otherwise. “Customers won’t demand it. They’ll just say, I don’t want to get in a self-driving car.”

Is Risher right? Is this just hopeful thinking because Lyft doesn’t have enough of a robotaxi plan to benefit from a quicker transition?

Ah, but there’s more. Risher also points out that there are a lot of extra costs to running a tax business that Lyft doesn’t currently cover, but it would have to cover if it used robotaxis. There are maintenance costs, fueling costs, cleaning costs, and vehicle depreciation costs. As those who have driven for Lyft and Uber have often figured out over time, those costs are all put on the human drivers. This eats away at their earnings, while Lyft and Uber benefit from not having to pay a dime for all of that. However, if they operated robotaxis instead, they would have to pay all of those costs.

Risher also estimated that robotaxi costs are currently about $250,000 to $300,000 per vehicle, or about 10 times more than a Toyota Prius, Toyota Corolla, or Nissan LEAF. If true, that’s a lot of money to have to make up in not paying a human driver, and don’t forget about all of the extra costs noted in the paragraph above.

So, in the end, Risher just doesn’t see a big shift on the horizon. “I don’t think the idea of a driver being replaced by a robot is a very likely thing. In fact, I think it’s zero likelihood in any reasonable time frame.” Hmm. We will see.