Waymo Gets New Robotaxi Rival in the Atlanta Market --- May Mobility is joining with Lyft to challenge Alphabet unit's hold in city

“Autonomous-vehicle leader Waymo is facing a new challenger in Atlanta, just three months after the Alphabet unit began offering driverless rides in the city through Uber, the top ride-hailing app.

 

Riders using the Lyft app can be matched with one of a handful of modified Toyota Sienna minivans operated by Ann Arbor, Mich.-based May Mobility. For now, those vans will operate in only a small portion of the city and include a driver who can take over in case of a problem.

 

Atlanta represents a new front in the competition between Lyft and Uber. This is one of Lyft's first autonomous-vehicle offerings in the U.S., while Uber has been offering AV rides with Waymo cars in Phoenix since 2023 and in Austin, Texas, since March. Uber started driverless rides in Atlanta with Waymo in June.

 

For ride-hail companies, AVs offer a possible solution to one of their biggest challenges, the cost and availability of drivers.

 

Atlanta emerged as a hotbed for AV competition because of its density of customers and a friendly regulatory approach to driverless cars in Georgia, said Jeremy Bird, Lyft's executive vice president.

 

"We've built a great rider base in Atlanta," Bird told The Wall Street Journal. "You want to start somewhere where you're learning and you're figuring this out, and you can take it anywhere from there."

 

May Mobility will start with handfuls of vans, aiming to grow to dozens and hundreds, in a roughly 7-square-mile area in Midtown Atlanta, May Mobility Chief Executive Edwin Olson said.

 

Uber's territory with Waymo vehicles in Atlanta is approximately 65 square miles, an Uber spokesman said.

 

Waymo started offering driverless rides to the general public in San Francisco, followed by Los Angeles, in 2024. Tesla started piloting its internally developed robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June. It uses safety monitors, and rides are hailed on its own app.

 

May Mobility, an under-the-radar AV player whose investors include Toyota, has so far deployed its vehicles in small territories with predetermined routes and stops. The company, which has raised about $300 million in its eight-year history, initially focused on local transit agencies as partners.

 

"The scale of what we can with Lyft -- it's like a whole different world for us," Olson said.

 

May Mobility's minivans have been modified with cameras, lidar and radar sensors, which feed data to a computer stashed in the front seat.

 

While Lyft and May Mobility hope to add more cities, their partnership isn't exclusive. Uber remains on track to deploy May Mobility vehicles in Arlington, Texas, by the end of the year as previously announced, the companies confirmed.” [1]

 

1. Waymo Gets New Robotaxi Rival in the Atlanta Market --- May Mobility is joining with Lyft to challenge Alphabet unit's hold in city. Otts, Christopher.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 11 Sep 2025: B4.