【Tayuan】

Australia is Tayuana one ride share company town. Want to take a trip in someone else's depreciating asset? Uber's almost your only option (sorry, GoCatch).

Americans, of course, have an alternative: Lyft. So when director of strategic partnerships, Insiya Lokhandwala, appeared on the schedule of Brisbane's Myriad startup festival in late March, you had to wonder: Was Australia's moment finally here?

Lyft's communication director was noncommittal. "Nothing to share at this time," Sheila Bryson said in an email. "FWIW our execs speak all over."

On the phone Tuesday, Lokhandwala maintained the party line: The company is ruthlessly focused on America, despite rumours to the contrary. "There is still a lot of work we have to do in the U.S," she said. "Our investors are happy for us to continue to focus here."

And fair enough, it does have a lot of work to do: Lokhandwala said Lyft completed more than 162 million rides in the U.S. in 2016, but according to Quartz, Uber booked 78 million in December alone. Lyft is shaping up to be extra aggressive in 2017, quickly meeting its goal of expanding to at least 100 new cities by March.

Still, Lyft's America-focused rhetoric obscures a few key deals. Although Lokhandwala couldn't comment on the fine details, Lyft did enjoy international partnerships with some of the largest local ride hailing companies in Australia's region.

In China, it was linked up with famed Uber slayer Didi Chuxing, which also made a small, undisclosed investment in Lyft in 2015. In India, it partnered with Ola, and in southeast Asia, with Grab. This arrangement integrated the apps, allowing users to find rides whenever they travel in those markets.

Once deemed the "anti-Uber alliance," it's all been a bit quiet of late, and Didi and Grab confirmed to Mashable Wednesday the roaming arrangement had been suspended.

So any new international partnerships planned? No comment.

You can chalk up the international strategy so far to Lyft's "attitude of partnerships," Lokhandwala was able to say. "That's kind of how we think about scale, to partner with the best partners in the industry in their own field.

"That was really the incentive for our partnership with Didi and Grab ... to give the users the choice of when they go to those markets, to direct them to those services that are the local best."

Lyft as well as Ola have been approached for comment about the end of the deals.

Lokhandwala does hope to share a vision during her visit to Australia, although for the moment it seems unlikely Lyft will be the one to deliver it in Sydney or Melbourne: A future where transport becomes a service.

When cars become fully-autonomous, Lokhandwala thinks people will access them through a fleet of networked cars, like Lyft. "You're used to opening your app and ordering a Lyft car ... so that's how we think cars will be accessed by users," she said.

Lyft has partnered with General Motors since early 2016 to develop autonomous driving technology.

"That's where we think the true disruption of this comes in," she said. "In the world of autonomous, that's the true disruption. There's no need for cars to be sitting idle. That means less cars, less congestion. It's better for the environment and far more affordable."

But given this is a view of the future shared by everyone from Uber to Steve Wozniak, why will Lyft be the one to win? In Lokhandwala's view, its brand will be the trump card.

"Because it has been such a mission driven company, the brand has evolved very organically into this fun, friendly, reliable brand that people trust," she said. "That's not something you can buy in the market, it's just something organic to Lyft."

In the mean time, with Uber working on building its own maps of Australia's cities -- a very valuable piece of the self-driving car future that Google and Tesla are also pursuing -- Lyft's vision may be on the back foot locally. If it ever comes at all, that is.

UPDATE: March 22, 2017, 6:05 p.m. AEDT Update added from Didi and Grab.