GM Teams With Lyft For On-Demand Autonomous Auto Network

This week General Motors and Lyft announced an alliance which would eventually create an on-demand autonomous vehicle network in the United States. General Motors will be investing a cool $500 million in Lyft, and GM will hold one seat on Lyft's board of directors. This alliance will include adding GM as a "preferred provider" of vehicles to Lyft drivers throughout the United States (or as they say, "in various cities in the U.S.).

This alliance will also begin to offer GM's "wide portfolio of cars and OnStar service" to Lyft drivers and customers. This will include "personalized mobility services and experiences" through both Lyft and GM's channels.

This is just part of Lyft's news this morning, the rest including a total of $1 billion raised from a variety of partners. Existing Lyft investors that have invested more this investment round include Janus Capital Management, Rakuten, Didi Kuaidi and Alibaba. Kingdom Holding Company invested the second-largest amount of cash with $100 million.

Following this latest round, it's suggested that Lyft is valued at $5.5 billion, "post money." That's from Lyft's own press release, mind you.

"We see the future of personal mobility as connected, seamless and autonomous," said GM president Dan Ammann. "With GM and Lyft working together, we believe we can successfully implement this vision more rapidly."