American ride-hailing company Lyft has announced a collaboration with Chinese tech giant Baidu, planning to deploy autonomous taxis (Robotaxi) in the European market starting in 2026. Benefiting from this positive news, Lyft and Baidu stocks both rose more than 3% before the US market opened.

According to the agreement, the cooperation will first start in the UK and Germany, and after regulatory approval, Baidu's sixth-generation mass-produced autonomous vehicle RT6 will be put into operation on Lyft's platform. The two companies plan to expand the deployment scale to thousands of vehicles in the coming years.

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This collaboration marks Lyft's first expansion of its business beyond North America. Just last week, Lyft completed the acquisition of FreeNow, a European taxi app. This move has built an operational network covering 9 European countries and more than 180 cities, laying a solid foundation for the deployment of Robotaxi.

In terms of cooperation division, Lyft will be responsible for platform operations, customer service, and fleet scheduling, while Baidu will provide autonomous vehicles and core technology support.