Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, Lyft chief strategy officer Raj Kapoor, Detroit Economic Growth Corporation CEO Kevin Johnson and Sherif Markaby, the CEO of Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F)’s autonomous vehicles division, discussed the self-driving vehicle market with The New York Times’ Rebecca Blumenstein at a TimesTalks event at Detroit’s Gem Theatre Tuesday.
Here are some of the takeaways from the panel.
Raj Kapoor
When asked about his reasoning for joining Lyft and the push for fewer cars on the planet’s roads, Kapoor said it’s an effort to combat global warming.
“There’s a distinction that was made early on, which is that yes, our mission to improve people’s lives with the best transportation,” Kapoor said. “But what we realize is that over the next 10 years, there are 2.5 billion people moving into cities and there’s no way that just adding more cars and adding more roads is going to solve the problem.”
Reducing the number of cars does not mean reducing mobility, the Lyft CSO said.
Kevin Johnson
Blumenstein asked Detroit Economic Growth Corporation CEO Johnson about his thoughts on driverless technology development in Michigan.
“I think it’s important to note that Michigan, and Detroit specifically, got the development started. There is no city in the world that the automotive industry circles around as much as this …
Read the full story at Benzinga.
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