Lyft Inc. will promote its self-driving expertise unit to Toyota Motor Corp. in a $550 million deal, the businesses stated on Monday, permitting the ride-hail firm to hit its profitability goal one quarter earlier.

The sale of Stage 5 to Toyota’s Woven Planet division will enable Lyft to give attention to partnerships with self-driving firms that wish to deploy their expertise on its platform, relatively than develop pricey expertise that has but to be put to wide-scale use.

Lyft will obtain $200 million money upfront, with the remaining $350 million paid over 5 years, the businesses stated. The deal is predicted to shut within the third quarter.

Lyft didn’t instantly say the way it plans to speculate the funds. However the sale will enable Lyft to report third-quarter revenue on an adjusted foundation of earnings earlier than curiosity, taxes, depreciation and amortization so long as the corporate continues to recuperate from the coronavirus pandemic, it famous.

Woven Planet, which Toyota arrange in January to develop related automobile, autonomous and semi-autonomous driving expertise, will take over all the greater than 300 staff of Stage 5.

The sale comes at a time of accelerating consolidation within the capital-intensive self-driving business.

Uber Applied sciences Inc., Lyft’s bigger ride-hail rival, in December announced the sale of its self-driving division to car startup Aurora at a steep drop in valuation.

The gross sales enable the businesses to dump cash-burning facet companies and give attention to reviving their core divisions following a bruising pandemic 12 months.

Lyft stated it could now give attention to what it might do finest with autonomous autos, by providing companies similar to shopper interface and managing, and sustaining and cleansing companions’ autonomous automobile fleets, which might imply added income.

Lyft permits shoppers to e-book rides in self-driving autos in choose cities in partnerships with Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo and Motional, the three way partnership between Hyundai Motor Co and Aptiv.

It’ll proceed to gather real-world driving information by some 10,000 autos it rents out to shoppers and ride-hail drivers. The info is efficacious for the event of self-driving autos that Woven Planet can have entry to below the deal.

However Lyft additionally believes human ride-hail drivers will stay necessary for the foreseeable future to serve prospects throughout peak demand intervals, dangerous climate, or in areas that self-driving automobiles are unable to navigate.