Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Lift and Weimo are partnering to bring self driving taxis
Speaker 2: to Nashville. Customers will be able to request driver US
Speaker 2: rides on both companies platforms, and Lift will provide fleet
Speaker 2: management for Waimo's national operations. Let's get to more with
Speaker 2: Lift CEO David Rischer. This is something you've been working
Speaker 2: on for some time, that's right, and the state of
Speaker 2: plays is very clear. Weimo also has a partnership with
Speaker 2: Uber in different markets. You now have a partnership in Nashville.
Speaker 2: Just explain the rationale for you on why this is
Speaker 2: a great go to market for robotaxi.
Speaker 1: Well, as you know, we've been saying for a while
Speaker 1: we think self driving cars are going to be hugely
Speaker 1: market expanding for ride share. It's a really good product.
Speaker 1: And then when we looked at potential partners of course
Speaker 1: Weimo has to be at the top of the list.
Speaker 1: The great thing about this partnership is it does two things.
Speaker 1: It supplies demand. So if you're in the self driving
Speaker 1: car business, you've got to have demand. We got lots
Speaker 1: of demand every single day, and we do it in
Speaker 1: a very integrated way. But the other thing is, as
Speaker 1: you just mentioned, it supplies fleet management, and that sounds
Speaker 1: kind of geeky, but it's really important that every one
Speaker 1: of those cars be ready to drive twenty four to
Speaker 1: seven if needed, and that's something we're really good at.
Speaker 1: We've been doing that for a long time.
Speaker 2: So you're emphasizing the sort of capital light business model
Speaker 2: for you, right. The counter argument is the Tesla or
Speaker 2: the zooks one, which is control the full stack hardware
Speaker 2: software operationally the app the consumer interfaces with. Would you
Speaker 2: argue that you can scale this faster, going this route,
Speaker 2: go to more cities quicker?
Speaker 1: I would? Yeah. I mean this allows every company to specialize, right,
Speaker 1: so waymo can really focus on providing great self driving technology.
Speaker 1: The way Moore Driver is obviously a great product. They
Speaker 1: partner with OEMs, the car manufacturers that can choose the
Speaker 1: best car form, and then we can provide the fleet
Speaker 1: management as they say, that keeps the cars clean and
Speaker 1: charged and ready to go, as well as the demand
Speaker 1: so that anytime a person wants a car, they can
Speaker 1: get one, or they can get a driver car, right,
Speaker 1: I mean they can get so it's I think it's
Speaker 1: a great division of labor.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about that fleet management flex drive because you're
Speaker 3: going to be building, you're going to be putting some
Speaker 3: cabal expenditure to work. David, Why does that make sense
Speaker 3: and when will that be finished?
Speaker 1: So we've been in the flex drive world. Let me
Speaker 1: explain for a second. So about a decade ago, Lift
Speaker 1: decided that for a certain type of driver, it really
Speaker 1: makes sense to have cars that they can rent right
Speaker 1: on the platform and they can do we can take
Speaker 1: care of the maintenance and making sure that those cars
Speaker 1: are always ready to drive. So that's what we've been
Speaker 1: doing for about a decade now. So when we look
Speaker 1: at the autonomous vehicle world, you know, look when you
Speaker 1: see a car driving around the city, it looks like magic.
Speaker 1: It looks like no one had to touch it. But
Speaker 1: no someone had to charge it, someone had to clean it,
Speaker 1: someone has to maintain it. Someone probably has to reboot
Speaker 1: it from time to time. And we're really good at that.
Speaker 1: So as you say we're building a new depot there,
Speaker 1: we've got a small one. We're building a bigger one
Speaker 1: for this partnership. And what it does is it allows
Speaker 1: the cars to be ready to drive, ready to drive.
Speaker 1: Think about so when you travel on an airline and
Speaker 1: you know you know that of course they want the
Speaker 1: airplane in the air, but they also needed to be
Speaker 1: ready to fly at all times. They want that turnaround
Speaker 1: to be super fast. And that's what flex drive does.
Speaker 1: It means that people like WYMO can get the most
Speaker 1: out of our asset, which is super good for them.
Speaker 3: Look today, investors love this announcement and the shares a rising.
Speaker 3: Shares have been doing well all year because you've had
Speaker 3: three straight quarters of profitability. David, how are you going
Speaker 3: to finance what is a little less asset like is
Speaker 3: building these facilities to help keep all our auto cars clean.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, as I say, because we've been in the
Speaker 1: flex drive business, the subsidiary business for a long time,
Speaker 1: we've actually had capital deployed to that for a long time.
Speaker 1: We have about twenty four locations in about fifteen different
Speaker 1: states across the United States, which I think gives you
Speaker 1: a sense of how this kind of partnership could scale
Speaker 1: over time. And we own some of those cars ourselves.
Speaker 1: Others of those cars are financed by other groups. So
Speaker 1: the good news is this won't be a significant change
Speaker 1: to the current strategy. It's just sort of a revectoring.
Speaker 1: Let's say, of the money we spend more towards.
Speaker 2: Autonomous okay, scale over time this morning, Bloomberg type you
Speaker 2: some Marguerite Galleryini put this table together, you know the
Speaker 2: table right It explains the roadmap from here. So let's
Speaker 2: look at it together. This is twenty twenty six and
Speaker 2: it focuses on Weimo principally. But there's you there, right, Nashville.
Speaker 2: You are going to come up against suba in negotiating
Speaker 2: with Weimo for cities that are not yet claimed for
Speaker 2: What are the advantages that you're going to present to
Speaker 2: win that business with Weimo against Duba and how much
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to give up, you know, to get
Speaker 2: a deal done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think the way I would look at
Speaker 1: that is one of the reasons we were so called
Speaker 1: patient in working through this deal because it took a while.
Speaker 1: It was we wanted to come up with something that
Speaker 1: is good for Weimo, good for Lyft, and good for riders,
Speaker 1: and that's hard to do. It's hard to have, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of a three away win. We feel really good
Speaker 1: about it and feel like this is a great model
Speaker 1: for us to expand to other cities in the future.
Speaker 1: But look, city by city, you know, some places we're
Speaker 1: actually going to compete with WEIMO itself, right because for
Speaker 1: example here in San Francisco, they've got.
Speaker 2: Their own appreciate that admission, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Of course, So this is something we you have to
Speaker 1: kind of recognize and say, how do we come up
Speaker 1: with a construct that is really durable and frankly can
Speaker 1: benefit all the companies and then the other guys will
Speaker 1: do what they do and you know, we'll see who
Speaker 1: does a better job.
Speaker 2: Look, people are going to accuse me of wanting to
Speaker 2: create a headline here, but it's a really important question.
Speaker 2: Tesla and Zookes are committed to their own go to
Speaker 2: market model. Right, we talked about they control the full stack.
Speaker 2: But have you held discussions with both Tesla and Zoke's
Speaker 2: to say, like, look, this is the model we're doing
Speaker 2: with Weimo, we can do something similar. Do you see
Speaker 2: that as being realistic?
Speaker 1: So, of course I don't want to come in on,
Speaker 1: you know, conversations we might be having. What I can
Speaker 1: tell you is we're talking to everyone who finds the
Speaker 1: partnership model interesting. You know, there are, of course always companies.
Speaker 1: Whenever you see a new industry, you have some companies
Speaker 1: that say I want to do it all, and frankly,
Speaker 1: if you look back a couple of years ago, just
Speaker 1: about every company in the self driving space was in
Speaker 1: that zone. They wanted to do everything top to bottom.
Speaker 1: I think over time most companies find, particularly when it's
Speaker 1: capital intensive and quite complex, like rideshare and self driving,
Speaker 1: is that a division of labor where everyone does what
Speaker 1: they're good at is the best model. But we'll see,
Speaker 1: you know, it's still such early.
Speaker 3: Days, but you struck deals with interesting players in Europe,
Speaker 3: I do, what's it like working with a Chinese giant?
Speaker 3: What were those negotiations like?
Speaker 1: You know? I actually, I'll tell you what was very interesting.
Speaker 1: It came together fairly quickly, and in part I think
Speaker 1: is you know, frankly, Chinese companies are kind of built
Speaker 1: for speed, you know. They for those of you who
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, by do you can sort of
Speaker 1: think of them as kind of the Google or Alphabet
Speaker 1: of China. They have many businesses, but self driving cars
Speaker 1: are a very important one for them, and we committed
Speaker 1: that we would roll out some of their technology in
Speaker 1: one to two markets we would expect in Europe over
Speaker 1: the next twelve months or so. It's still very early
Speaker 1: days there, but I can tell you they've got really
Speaker 1: high standards for their technology. We're super excited about working
Speaker 1: with those guys, and we'll have more to say about
Speaker 1: that next year once we start to roll out in Europe.
Speaker 3: One minute, how hard is it to get to New York?
Speaker 1: I mean I can take a flight there pretty easily.
Speaker 3: Also, the ROBOTAXI how hot? When am I going to
Speaker 3: have it here?
Speaker 1: I love that? You know it's going to take a
Speaker 1: little while. New York is a complex place to do business.
Speaker 1: The streets are complicated. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: interest there. Look, you know this Caroline, I mean, Lift
Speaker 1: has been there for many years. It's super strong in
Speaker 1: New York. We also run the city bike program, as
Speaker 1: you know, super excited to bring self driving there someday,
Speaker 1: but that was probably gonna take a little while. Sorry
Speaker 1: about that, you can have to wait for ale.
Speaker 3: My addiction with the bikes will just have to continue.
Speaker 1: Lift.
Speaker 3: See David so as a joy to have you on
Speaker 3: the show. Take care,