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G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

nytimes.com

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Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#151

Post by itchyouch »

PantaloonFlames wrote: post #126
coliveira wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if all cars are self driving, these cars have to come from somewhere. The rental model may in the end provide more profits, because it has built-in repeated charges.

> these cars have to come from somewhere. yes, but think how much the average car owner uses the non-self-driving car today. The car mostly sits idle in a garage or parking spot, and is used, maybe 75 minutes of each day. Multiplexing riders into a pool of shared cars is one way to drastically reduce the worldwide fleet of cars. a larger proportion of total cars will be moving at any one time to transport the same nu…

The next 5-10 years is the time to stock up on popular sports cars and garage them to sell them as highly prized, super rare, trackable luxuries.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#152

Post by bglazer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #140

It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America's fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this: FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school. SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car's o…

> Barring massive public subsidy for car ownership

Not to be trite, but one should never underestimate the impact of lobbying from massive established corporations.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#153

Post by kbenson »

icelancer wrote: post #144
kbenson wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government didn't give money, they invested because the market wasn't in a position to do so when the industry needed it. The narrative that the company is only going to do good short-term because the government gave them a lot of money doesn't make sense when the government has since sold it's position in that company for a profit , meaning the market now viewed that company as a more favorable investment then t…

> they invested because the market wasn't in a position to do so when the industry needed it How is this different than "The industry planned poorly and deserves to have its assets liquidated?"

Because that industry employed two million people and a blow that large to the workforce with the economy how it was might have resulted in consequences that reached far beyond that industry.

Put another way, a free market will result in the best solution. Eventually. There's no reason we can't target what might end up being cascading failures to reduce the negative swings in the economy. I would hazard that this will result in a better economic outcome quicker, but even if it doesn't, I think it at least results in less human suffering, which is a fair trade in my eyes.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#154

Post by CardenB »

anthonybsd wrote: post #150
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #140

It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America's fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this: FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school. SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car's o…

>(Note: people already do this in cities like New York, where car ownership is relatively scarce.) Car ownership is 45% in NYC. Not sure why this is considered "scarce" :)

Relative to other areas, it seems scarce to me.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#155

Post by saosebastiao »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #140

It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America's fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this: FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school. SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car's o…

I can picture all of those things happening to some extent and still would only estimate a 3-5x reduction in fleet size. In order to get 10x, you are implicitly estimating that rush hour vehicle utilization is currently only 10%. I would estimate that rush hour utilization is in the range of 50-70%.

For 10x, you would absolutely have to do something to address peak time behavior. For example, if Mom, Dad, and Junior all have to be somewhere at the same time, you are still gonna need 3 vehicles. In aggregate, total fleet demand will be dictated by the marginal demand at the peak of rush hours.

EDIT: to add, I would still predict a massive move of car ownership toward corporations, and their primary domicile to large parking lots in outer suburbs, only to awake during rush hours. These cars will have a much lower return on investment, but probably enough to justify their costs.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#156

Post by RottenHuman »

kbenson wrote: post #135
acchow wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bailout was massively profitable for the government and every penny has been repaid I don't really have a stance on the GM bailout, but your statement here is missing something important - every company that a government gives billions to will do disproportionately well in their industry in the short term and give solid returns. But the role of taxpayer money isn't to select winners. The free market is supposed…

The government didn't give money, they invested because the market wasn't in a position to do so when the industry needed it. The narrative that the company is only going to do good short-term because the government gave them a lot of money doesn't make sense when the government has since sold it's position in that company for a profit , meaning the market now viewed that company as a more favorable investment then t…

What you're completely ignoring is the consequences such bailouts have on the market dynamics[1]. It creates a massive morale hazard which can and will incentivize market actors to take part in risky behaviour. If you are seeking to stabilize the "free" market, you are not going to do it by rewarding the losers or picking the winners.

Failing is just as important aspect of a self-regulated system as is the price, since the government voided that mechanism since forever we have an entirely disrupted market perfectly conditioned for too-big-to-fail participants.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#157

Post by axplusb »

saosebastiao wrote: post #155
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #140

It is predicted that autonomous cars will reduce America's fleet of vehicles by something like 10-fold [1]. I think it will unfold something like this: FIRST, instead three cars for mom, dad and kid, the average family has one car that drops mom off to work, then dad, and then the teen off to school. SECOND, aforementioned car makes use of its down time to drive strangers around via Uber, Lyft, et cetera. The car's o…

I can picture all of those things happening to some extent and still would only estimate a 3-5x reduction in fleet size. In order to get 10x, you are implicitly estimating that rush hour vehicle utilization is currently only 10%. I would estimate that rush hour utilization is in the range of 50-70%. For 10x, you would absolutely have to do something to address peak time behavior. For example, if Mom, Dad, and Junior…

How about Mom, Dad, and Junior share rides with other Moms, Dads, and Juniors who are headed in the same direction?

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#158

Post by aswanson »

peter303 wrote: post #132

GM had and still has an impressive technical research center. Its just that establishment big companies dont get the respect that startup companies do. Nor can the employees win big like in a startup IPO. General Electric is currently running a humorous TV commercial about this. A hipster engineers friends throw him a "new job party". But they go slackjaw when they discover he joinged GE instead of Facebook. GE has t…

Zazzies > GE.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#159

Post by j2bax »

tomasien wrote: post #123
mangeletti wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is entirely untrue, pertaining GM. We tax payers lost tremendous money on GM[1], and then GM restructured (think "good bank bad bank"[2] style nonsense) in a clever way to ensure that we would never reap the benefits of the future success of "GM". 1. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-gm-treasury-idUSBREA... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_bank

Good point! Very good point - I still think investing in innovation is the only thing that makes sense for GM, the reason the auto bailout worked out is because Ford*, for example, did and is crushing it. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/business/us-signals-end-of... Edit: Ford did not take bailout money so that logically does not hold like I thought it did. Point about innovating still holds fine.

I was under the impression that Ford was the only one that didn't take a bailout.

Re: G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

#160

Post by blhack »

tommoor wrote: post #112
cpwright wrote: post #111

"G.M. will also work with Lyft to set up a series of short-term car rental hubs across the United States, places where people who do not own cars can pick up a vehicle and drive for Lyft to earn money. Daniel Ammann, president of G.M., will join Lyft’s board of directors." This reminds me very much of the taxi model; where the driver is going to start the shift in the hole and has to work their way out of it.

Maybe they could paint them in a special livery so that you could tell it's a Lyft from a distance ;)

I know that you and parent are joking about lyft being just another taxi service, but would that really hurt them?

Lyft and Uber win because of the ability to rate their drivers, ease of payment (imho Uber wins this much more than lyft), and the fact that everything about your trip is tracked.

You get into a regular taxi, and who knows who is going to be behind the wheel, what state the car is going to be in, what sorts of payment they'll agree to take, etc.

Uber and Lyft took all of that nonsense out of the transaction. THAT is why they're winning (that, and cost), not because of what their cars look like.

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