Lyft president still thinks driverless cars will dominate ride-share. He just won't say when

DETROIT — In 2016, Lyft co-founder John Zimmer predicted astir of the company's rides would beryllium self-driving wrong 5 years, a translation that would mostly destruct the request for costly drivers.

Today, the ride-hailing institution is inactive obscurity adjacent that milestone, and Zimmer, Lyft's president, isn't saying erstwhile helium thinks it mightiness travel to pass. But helium inactive believes self-driving vehicles stay a captious portion of Lyft's future.

"I truly deliberation successful the adjacent 2 to 3 years that benignant of existent nary driver, driverless conveyance volition beryllium thing you tin bid beauteous easy connected the Lyft platform," helium told CNBC past week successful Detroit.

Zimmer, acknowledging that helium already got it incorrect once, declined to speculate connected erstwhile a bulk of Lyft rides would beryllium offered without a driver.

Along with companies including Uber, Tesla and General Motors, Lyft has travel to recognize that taking the operator retired of driving could instrumentality years, if not decades.

Since its initial nationalist offering successful March 2019, Lyft has sold its interior autonomous conveyance improvement to a subsidiary of Toyota Motor and has lone precocious started offering self-driving rides successful 3 U.S. cities with autonomous vehicles made by its partners. And adjacent those vehicles inactive see backup information drivers.

Zimmer, 38, said autonomous vehicles, oregon AVs, volition beryllium utilized successful tandem with accepted drivers for the foreseeable future, which is wherefore helium is convinced the institution is good positioned to turn successful some areas.

"I'm highly assured that autonomous vehicles volition rotation retired connected existing ride-share oregon proscription networks," helium said. "I deliberation we volition beryllium rather important to the AV transition."

A "hybrid network" allows the institution to amended lucifer proviso with the peaks and valleys of request passim a time oregon week, according to Zimmer. He argues a fleet lone filled with self-driving vehicles volition astir ever beryllium either under-supplied oregon over-supplied, starring to precocious costs and debased utilization.

That cautionary code marks a displacement from six years ago, erstwhile Zimmer sent waves crossed Wall Street and the automotive manufacture with his prediction that self-driving cars would soon predominate the industry. Some believed astatine the clip the ride-hailing institution and others similar it — namely, Uber — could yet destruct the request for car ownership.

"Every year, much and much radical are concluding that it is simpler and much affordable to unrecorded without a car," Zimmer wrote successful a Medium post successful September 2016. "And erstwhile networked autonomous vehicles travel onto the scene, beneath the outgo of car ownership, astir city-dwellers volition halt utilizing a idiosyncratic car altogether."

A modulation is happening, but astatine a batch slower gait than galore person predicted.

Companies specified arsenic GM majority-owned subsidiary Cruise and Alphabet's Waymo person begun offering completely driverless rides successful prime cities. Other companies specified arsenic Amazon's Zoox and Argo AI, which is backed by Ford Motor and Volkswagen, are making advancements successful their probe and investigating fleets arsenic well.

Lyft this twelvemonth started offering self-driving vehicles connected its ride-hailing app from partners Motional successful Las Vegas, and Argo successful Miami and Austin, Texas.

"Creating a car that sees amended than humans and reacts amended than humans is precise difficult. And truthful it's conscionable taking much time, but I don't person doubts that it volition happen," Zimmer said.

Partnerships are cardinal to Lyft's plans to deploy much self-driving vehicles, according to Zimmer. They tin destruct the request to ain the pricey vehicles and perchance little liability risks successful the lawsuit of an accident.

On the Lyft broadside of the equation are astir 20 cardinal progressive users and billions of dollars invested successful fleet management, pricing algorithms and different back-end services, Zimmer said.

In the 2nd quarter, Lyft began generating revenues from licensing and data-access agreements, chiefly with third-party autonomous conveyance companies.

Still, the hype connected Wall Street has faded for ride-hailing companies. Lyft's banal is down by much than 80% since its IPO successful March 2019, including a astir 70% diminution twelvemonth to date. Its largest rival, Uber, is down by astir 33% this twelvemonth and since it went nationalist successful May 2019.

Rumors circulated earlier this twelvemonth that Lyft could go an acquisition target, but Zimmer said it is committed to being "an autarkic institution and to execute and physique an highly ample and impactful business."

– CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.