GM Cruise Said To Be Weighing Ride-Hailing Partnership With Uber

The partnership between General Motors autonomous subsidiary GM Cruise and transportation network company Lyft may have cooled to the point that Cruise is weighing forming a relationship with Lyft rival Uber, Forbes reports. Citing a report from The Information (subscription required), based on the claims of two insiders, Forbes says that GM Cruise could be looking to get its autonomous vehicles into an Uber ride-hailing program by 2018.

In support of the claim that GM’s relationship with Lyft might have weakened, Forbes points to the number of partnerships Lyft has struck up with companies outside General Motors since GM’s $500-million investment in the company in early-2016. Among those companies are Google’s Waymo, Jaguar Land Rover, nuTonomy, Drive.ai, and most recently, Big Three rival Ford Motor Company. Last July, Lyft even announced plans to develop its own “open self-driving system,” saying at the time it was “working together [with its partners] to create the transportation ecosystem that will define our future.”

The open platform means Lyft’s partners will “be able to tap into our wealth of data and experience to create the best self-driving experience,” Lyft VP of Engineering Luc Vincent wrote in a Medium essay.

GM has referred to the assertion of a possible Uber partnership as “speculation,” saying that nothing has changed with regard to the automaker’s relationship with Lyft. A company spokesperson said that the partnership never called for exclusivity from either party.

Whether or not GM Cruise presses its autonomous vehicles into service through an Uber program, the report further states that Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt has been told to create a ride-hailing service for GM that could compete with Lyft and Uber.