GM President Dan Amman Sees Uber & Lyft's Success in Driverless Car Trend

For quite some time, the automobile industry has expressed its desire to produce consumer-ready, self-driving vehicles. Enthusiasts would be delighted to know that these cars will arrive sooner than imagined - at least according to General Motors president Dan Ammann.

Ammann tells this in an interview with BuzzFeed, adding that ride services like Uber and Lyft are set to boom as a consequence. He says autonomous cars "fundamentally enable massive scale adoption of ride-share."

"The vast majority of the cost of a ride-share ride, of a Lyft today, is the driver. If you can take the driver out of the equation, the cost of that comes down dramatically," the official said.

Today, Uber and Lyft are among the most popular ride-sharing services that bring transportation and technology together, resulting to convenient road travel. BuzzFeed notes the former's hiring of robotics and AI engineers and the latter's expected sale of self-driving vehicles in a decade.

In the meantime, drivers from both companies are being required by San Francisco to render an annual $91 business registration fee if they earn $100,000 or less, the SF Gate reported. There are at least 37,000 drivers affected.

Because such drivers are maintained as independent contractors and not employees, they will have to register for a business license, City Treasurer Jose Cisneros is saying. Contractors who have driven for multiple years need to pay registration fees equivalent to unregistered years.

The treasurer said, "We have a very broad and comprehensive business registration requirement. This has been a law that has been around for many years. It's very clearly spelled out on our website - the law here in San Francisco requires you to register your business with the city. If they missed that requirement, they are still obligated to do that."

So far, Uber and Lyft saved finances by not providing their drivers health insurance and overtime pay, among other expenses, the Verge noted. According to the outlet, Lyft, in its case, was able to keep $126 million.