David Risher, CEO of Lyft, joins CNBC's 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss the company's new partnership with Waymo to launch autonomous rides in Nashville in 2026.

Nashville

Lyft has revealed a new partnership with Waymo to bring fully autonomous rides to Nashville, with plans to expand to additional markets in the future. The collaboration combines Lyft's extensive ride demand and fleet management capabilities with Waymo's autonomous vehicle technology, aiming to maximize fleet utilization and efficiency.

Lyft CEO David Richer highlighted the company's unique position through its FlexDrive subsidiary, which manages a large fleet and maintains high vehicle availability. The partnership is expected to support Lyft's growth and profitability by offering reliable, self-driving ride options and leveraging lower operational costs over time.

Lyft CEO on partnership with Waymo: 'This is just getting started'

Let's share, let's take a look up almost 15% after the company announces a partnership with Waymo. It will bring fully autonomous rides starting in Nashville. Joining us now first on CNBC is the company's CEO, David Richer. David, good to have you. Good morning. Starting in Nashville next year, is that the first market of what you expect will be many in terms of this potential for the partnership with Waymo? I mean, I hope so, obviously. But look, this is just getting started. So last year, we really sat down and said, what is a great deal for Waymo, great for Lyft, and great for riders. And we came up with this demand generation plus fleet management construct. I think it's going to be great in Nashville. And obviously, we set it up for the long term. What is this construct you're talking about? Can you give us some sense as to what you mean when you string those words together? Yeah, I know. It sounds like a lot of buzzwords, right? So on the demand generation side, that just basically means, look, we do 2 million rides a day across North America. A lot of those are in Nashville. And so we've got all the demand that a company like Waymo needs to keep their fleet utilized. And that's what they're going to want to do, right? They're going to want to have these self-driving cars always on the road. And we've integrated it, and this is our plan, very tightly into our marketplace in a way that makes sure that both companies always get kind of all the cars they need to satisfy the demand they've got. And then fleet management, it sounds kind of geeky, but it's really, you know, who charges the car? Who keeps the car clean? Who makes sure the car is maintained? And we've been doing this for years, over a decade, with our subsidiary fleet, a subsidiary fleet management service called FlexDrive. So these two things together really make for what we think is going to be a really powerful partnership and kind of change the world of AVs. Waymo has similar partnerships in place with other providers, including your competitor Uber. Is there a way that you feel like this differentiates in terms of what they're doing with Uber? I do. The fleet management piece is unique to Lyft. So FlexDrive, which, again, we set up about a decade ago, has about 15,000 cars kind of on rent at any given point. And that kind of expertise, you know, imagine having, you know, thousands and thousands of cars. You have to understand where they are, when they've been last maintained, you know, what they need to make sure that they're always available. We do that at an industry-leading level. Our cars are available about 90-plus percent of the time, which, again, is industry-leading for fleet management. Again, I know it sounds kind of geeky, and when you see a self-driving car, you know, around maybe a San Francisco or a Phoenix, you think it's just magic, that it's just kind of magic, takes care of itself, charges itself, and so forth. But that's not the case. So that's something that we do. We do it uniquely, and it's one of the things I think Waymo is very interested in. And then on the demand generation side, you know, some of the other partnerships they have are of a very different type. And I'll let them speak to other partnerships that they've got, but we really like this model and think it sets us up well for, not just now, but for the future. Well, you just answered part of my question, which is, David, I get why you would want to work with Waymo. I mean, if the future of ridesharing is self-driving, but why would Waymo need a Lyft or even an Uber? Can't they just make an app and go out and do with what you're doing? So the thing is, when you think about rideshare, because you experience through the app, you think to yourself, well, this can't be that hard. But gosh, there is a lot of work that goes behind that app. Gosh, there's a lot of work. There's pricing. So again, two million rides a day. Every time someone opens our app, which is multiple millions beyond that, we've got to price it. We've got to estimate the ETA. We've got to make sure that the right car picks you up at the right time. We've got to do it for what we call standard, extra comfort, black, wait and save. It's quite complicated. We've got to keep the car clean, or in some cases, some cases the driver does themselves. We've got to deal with customer service. All of these things is real work. And it costs, frankly, billions of dollars over the last 12, 13 years that Lyft has been doing this. So if you're a company like Waymo, sure, you might want to do some of that yourself, and they are. They're experimenting in certain markets. But I think you also want to partner with people who have been doing it for years and years and years, and I believe doing it the best in class, and figure out whether that model is maybe an even better way for you to monetize this asset, this huge amount of work you've done to create this amazing technology. And what do investors need to know about how profitable and how much growth it's going to provide for you? Because you have turned around this company, and you've been working a lot on profitability, so what does the Waymo partnership look like in terms of the economics for your business? You know, I'll put it in the bigger context. We've always said that customer obsession is what drives profitable growth, and that's what you've seen over the last two and a half years or so since I've been in this seat. Customer obsession means creating great products and services that your customers want. And so self-driving cars are amazing. They're safe. You know, they know the rules of the road. They tend to follow the rules of the road. They're very reliable. They're quiet. So at a time when you want that experience, we love having that. And what we see in markets where there are autonomous cars, because there are right now, we actually see those markets growing faster, faster than a lot of the other markets we operate in. So I think from a growth perspective, it's only going to be positive. And then as you say, from cost, you know, of course, you've got lower insurance costs over time. You don't have to pay the drivers. Now, there are always trade-offs, right? There'll be other costs around maintenance and such, but we think it's going to be great for the industry because it'll grow it, but also grow it, you know, profitably.

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Jerusalem

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Utah County

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Windsor

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Madrid

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Tel Aviv-Yafo

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Warsaw

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