Lyft passenger Christina Shatzen gets into a car driven by Nancy Tcheou, in San Francisco. Lyft and GM just announced a short-term rental program for driverr.  (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Lyft and General Motors just announced a new program to offer short-term car rentals to professional drivers -- in some cases, for free -- a move that could help the ride-hailing start-up attract drivers who lack cars that meet their standards.

But ultimately, the rental program -- called Express Drive -- is part of a larger partnership that aims to replace drivers with self-driving vehicles.

It may sound strange that a ride-sharing service and one of the world's biggest car manufacturers would team up in an initiative that would eliminate the need for drivers. But many in the auto industry have acknowledged that self-driving technology is on its way and that companies need to adapt to that future -- or risk becoming absolute.

Indeed, during a talk in 2014, Uber chief executive Travis Kalanick said the shift was inevitable, adding he would tell professional drivers who might lose their jobs to autonomous driving advances that "this is the way the world is going," tech outlet Re/code reported at the time.

“If Uber doesn’t go there, it’s not going to exist either way,” he said.

Express Drive will launch this month in Chicago and "will soon roll out to Boston, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, as well as many other metro areas throughout the year," according to a Lyft blog post. Drivers will be allowed rent out cars for up to eight weeks under the program, which will cover basic maintenance and insurance for the vehicles. Rentals will be free for drivers who make more than 65 rides per week.

Lyft is touting Express Drive as a way to open up the service to "millions" of potential drivers to be able to work with its service. "Last year in Chicago alone, 60,000 people applied to drive with Lyft but didn’t have a qualifying car," the company's blog post said.

The partnership comes out of a $500 million investment in Lyft from GM, announced two months ago and aimed at developing an infrastructure of on-demand, self-driving vehicles. Both companies say that Express Drive is a "first step toward building a network of autonomous vehicles because it will establish the infrastructure to house, maintain and organize a large fleet of cars," according to Reuters.

Although ride-hailing companies often cite job creation as a benefit of their services, they're also investing in driverless tech that may someday erase those jobs.