Taggart Matthiesen takes us for a ride

Should ride-sharing companies build a “quiet mode”?

“We have thought about it,” Taggart Matthiesen, head of product for autonomous driving for Lyft, told me. “I think it’s interesting. At some point, we may play around with that idea, but that’s unfortunately not a feature at this point.”

Matthiesen says that a “zen mode” would represent another step in more personalized rides, a move the company plans to accelerate as it changes gradually to include more autonomous vehicles. “The autonomous car is going to know a lot more [about you],” Matthiesen said. “It’s going to know your temperature that you’re going to want. It’s probably also going to know that it’s early in the morning, and so it’s going to have a dark-lit cabin to let you sleep. Maybe you can even relax in the seat, and the back will extend into some sort of lie-flat mode. Maybe not complete lie-flat, just based on the area, but a good recline.”

Lyft is currently testing self-driving cars in Las Vegas in a partnership with the British company Aptiv. In March, it signed a deal with auto parts maker Magna to build and deploy its own self-driving cars. For Lyft, which is valued at more than $15 billion, autonomous vehicles represent an important plank of the company’s plans to remain competitive against larger competitors like Uber, which has grand autonomous driving plans of its own.

“THE AUTONOMOUS CAR IS GOING TO KNOW A LOT MORE ABOUT YOU.”

Matthiesen lays out his thoughts on how Silicon Valley should change its priorities on this episode of Converge.