Anyone summoning a Ford self-driving taxi after the company's service launches in 2021 could be offered detours to sponsoring stores or wind up riding alongside packages out for delivery. At an event on Wednesday to showcase Ford's progress in developing autonomous vehicles, the carmaker said its driverless rides could be less than half the price of today's ride-share journeys,if the cars were used day and night and carried interactive adverts. The firm is also insistent that it is not lagging behind Waymo, which has promised a commercial self-driving taxi service by the end of this year, or GM, which says it will follow suit in 2019. "If we wanted to call a launch 100 vehicles [on the road] next year and go into some business, we could do that," said Sherif Marakby, CEO of Ford Autonomous Vehicles, a spin-off from the giant automaker tasked with developing autonomous technologies, vehicles, and services. "[But] we're an auto company and when we talk about launch at scale, we're talking tens of thousands vehicles, and [doing that] profitably. That's different from what others are thinking."

Ford CEO Sherif Marakby has posted a detailed overview of the automaker's self-driving strategy, perhaps in an effort to show that the company will push through with its plans under his leadership. Marakby, who took over as CEO in July 2018, talks about how Ford is tackling each of the elements needed to launch a self-driving service by 2021, as well as its recents partnerships. See, the company teamed up with Walmart and Postmates to figure out how to offer businesses its self-driving cars for delivery. Marakby also showed off Ford Fusions loaded with a self-driving system that the company has been testing in Miami during a press event. The CEO says Ford is still working closely with Argo AI to develop the technology behind its self-driving platform.

U.S. ride-hailing firm Lyft has secured a permit to test autonomous vehicles in California, taking it one step further in the race with several other companies to bring self-driving cars to the masses. Lyft's permit, reflected on the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) website, comes two months after it announced plans to offer a self-driving car as a ride option in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lyft already has partnerships in place with autonomous car companies to advance its self-driving strategy. Ride-hailing firm Lyft Inc said on Monday it would launch its service in Toronto, marking the first international expansion for the U.S.-based rival of Uber Technologies Inc. Ford self-driving test vehicles will be connected to Lyft's network, but at first, customers will not be able to use them, according to Sherif Marakby, Ford's vice president for autonomous vehicles and electrification.

In a step towards having driverless taxis on roads, Lyft has joined forces with Ford to deploy self-driving vehicles in'large numbers' by 2021. Ford and Lyft teams will begin working together to design software to allow Ford vehicles to communicate with Lyft's smartphone apps. Ford will initially put human-driven vehicles on Lyft's network, and it is unclear when the first self-driving cars will hit roads. Ford and Lyft teams will begin working together to design software to allow Ford vehicles to communicate with Lyft's smartphone apps Ford self-driving test vehicles will be connected to Lyft's network, but at first, customers will not be able to use them, according to Sherif Marakby, Ford's vice president for autonomous vehicles and electrification. The firm will initially put human-driven vehicles on Lyft's network, and it is unclear when the first self-driving cars will hit roads.

Lyft has welcomed one more powerful ally to help it achieve its dreams of adding self-driving cars to its ride-hailing network: Ford. In his announcement post on Medium, Ford Autonomous Vehicle VP Sherif Marakby says the partnership will help them figure out how to tweak their autonomous AI platform to be able to seamlessly connect with the ride-hailing network's. By sharing data with each other, they hope to figure out the best cities to launch a ride-hailing fleet full of autonomous vehicles, as well as to conjure up the framework necessary to maintain that fleet. Their end goal is to give passengers a way to hail self-driving cars as easily as they would a normal one. Ford, which has been developing its self-driving tech for a while, joins the growing number of partners in Lyft's Open Platform Initiative, which already includes heavyweights like Waymo, General Motors, Land Rover and Jaguar.

An Uber Technologies Inc. executive who worked on the ride-hailing company's self-driving vehicle program has left the firm. He is the third executive to exit Uber in two months. The San Francisco company confirmed the departure of Sherif Marakby, Uber's vice president of global vehicle programs, who joined the company a year ago and left Monday. Uber did not say why he left. The company said in a statement that Marakby's "deep experience and knowledge of the automotive industry" helped Uber "tremendously in working to make self-driving cars a reality."

An Uber self-driving Ford Fusion sits at a traffic light on Beechwood Boulevard and waits to turn onto Fifth Avenue in Pittsburgh. Among the tenuous notions that have sprouted amid the fervor for autonomous vehicles is that Detroit and Silicon Valley are entwined in a titanic battle for supremacy. What is occurring is a very positive cross-pollination between two hubs of innovation. It is not a zero-sum game in which one industry will win and the other lose. There will be winners -- and occasionally losers -- all over the map.

Following last week's self-driving car news, Uber is preparing to open a new facility in Detroit. The ride-sharing company revealed a fleet of autonomous Ford Fusions a few days ago that are already taking passengers around Pittsburgh. Today, vice president of global vehicle programs Sherif Marakby said that the new outpost will be used to strengthen its collaboration with automakers that are headquartered in Michigan. Ford Motor Company's HQ is located in nearby Dearborn and Uber chose the automaker's 4-door sedans for its self-driving pilot. Marakby went on to explain that Uber doesn't have any interest in building its own hardware or vehicles, but it wants to work with companies on its plans for the future of the service.

Ride-hailing service Uber may be anchored in California's Silicon Valley, but it's the latest auto-related firm to say it will make sure to have a presence in the Motor City. Uber will open a new research center in metro Detroit by the end of this year to accommodate increased work with auto suppliers and other technology companies involved in autonomous vehicle development, said Sherif Marakby, Uber vice president for global vehicle development, said Monday at a conference in Novi, Mich. Uber has a large presence in Pittsburgh where last week it began operated about 20 fully autonomous Ford Fusion hybrids on its most heavily traveled routes in that city. "We have having engineers come up to Detroit to meet with...suppliers. We've also had discussions with automakers," said Marakby, who began working for Uber in April after 25 years at Ford.