San Francisco, Nov 18 (IANS): Top US ride-hailing company Lyft is moving closer towards self-driving ridesharing as it has added Chrysler Pacifica hybrids to its autonomous vehicle (AV) testing fleet.

The firm is also opening a new self-driving vehicle test facility East Palo Alto, in California that will allow Lyft to increase the number of AV tests it can run, Motly Fool reported on Sunday.

The centre will be near its self-driving HQ -- the "Level 5 Engineering Center".

At the new centre, engineers will mimic real-world driving scenarios involving intersections, traffic lights, roadway merges, pedestrian pathways, and other public roads, components of which will be reconfigurable, according to Venture Beat.

Lyft says that it's driving four times more autonomous miles per quarter than it was just six months ago and has about 400 employees worldwide working on self-driving tech. That figure is likely to expand, considering that Lyft has more than 40 autonomous vehicle job openings listed on its website, the Motly Fool report added.

Meanwhile, Lyft is also cutting down its scooter operations in several cities across the US.

This comes in the wake of low ridership than what the company had expected, so Lyft is focusing on other places.