Automotive News Canada - May 2018 - 14

* MAY 2018

SPOTLIGHT ON MOBILITY

Mobility is seen as the future of the automotive industry - shared vehicles,
ride-hailing, integrated transit systems and autonomous vehicles. But
companies are still searching for viable mobility business models. That's
seen in two major players' recent moves profiled here: General Motors'
launch of its Maven service in Toronto, and mega-supplier Magna's link
with Lyft to develop autonomous-drive technology.

MAGNA'S LYFT DEAL

Ride-hailing company Lyft will
write software and house the
partnership with Magna at its
Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters.
P H O T O : LY F T

Co-operation, not competition
Increasingly common
autonomous-drive
research partnerships
pool their capital
and expertise
By JOHN IRWIN
TORONTO BUREAU

MAGNA'S $200-MILLION
investment and partnership with
ride-hailing company Lyft is the latest example of auto companies collaborating on self-driving technology.
Magna, the Ontario company
that ranks second on Automotive
News' list of the largest global suppliers, said in March that it would
invest in Lyft and work hand-inhand with the San Francisco company to roll out self-driving technology.
Partnerships involving autonomous technology have been commonplace for both companies in

recent years as they have poured
hundreds of millions of dollars
into research and development.
Magna, for instance, is part of a
consortium that includes BMW,
Fiat Chrysler, Intel and Mobileye
to develop an autonomous platform for use by 2021.
Such partnerships offer cost
savings and exposure to the expertise of researchers and engineers
in areas previously outside the
scope of automakers.
"Autonomous driving is a complicated topic, and it's going to
take some time in getting on the
road in terms of volume," said
Boris Shulkin, vice-president of
research and development for
Magna, and the head of its project
with Lyft.
"It's going to take more than
one [company] to really tackle the
problem, so that's why you see
some of these consortiums."
As part of the Lyft partnership,
Magna will produce kits to make
Lyft's fleet of vehicles self-driving, though it will not manufac-

Jaguar in Europe. The kits for Lyft
will include cameras, lidar and
other technologies necessary for
any autonomous platform, Shulkin
said.

CLOSER TO LEVEL 5

Boris Shulkin, vice-president of
research and development for
Magna's corporate engineering, says it will "take more than
one [company] to really tackle"
self-driving technology.
PHOTO: MAGNA

ture vehicles for the company as it
does for Mercedes-Benz, BMW and

At the same time, Lyft will
develop software for the system
out of its new research-and-development centre in Palo Alto, Calif.,
where the project is based. Any
intellectual property developed as
part of the multi-year partnership
will be jointly owned, according to
Magna.
Shulkin said Magna sees the
partnership as a way to help the
company get closer to developing
Level 5 (fully autonomous) technology, though he does not foresee such technology being available on a mass scale beyond small,
geofenced areas in certain markets.
"It's difficult to imagine that
one day we'll wake up and there
are full fleets of autonomous vehicles on the streets," Shulkin said.
Still, he said Magna's technology for Lyft can be ported to vehicles with lower levels of autonomy,
still requiring some driver involvement.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News Canada - May 2018