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G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

nytimes.com

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

#291

Post by bduerst »

mangeletti wrote: post #116
tomasien wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bailout was massively profitable for the government and every penny has been repaid. Investing in innovation is exactly what a company like GM should be doing and our tax dollars are in no way involved in this. Edit: didn't make money on GM http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-gm-treasury-idUSBREA... Made lots of money overall: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/business/us-signals-end-of...

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

That's because in 2009, G.M. filed one of the biggest Ch. 11 bankruptcies in history, which the bailouts failed to prevent.

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

#293

Post by rconti »

netcan wrote: post #198

Everyone is relating this mostly to autonomous vehicles. I think this might take uber/lyft straight out of the game. Ubers advantage/most is the network. Its hard to beat a network advantage. They are installed and plugged into a lot of people's creditcredit cards. That works just as well for self driving cars. But the advantage of the driver network is straight out the door if autonomous vehicles replace humans. Net…

I don't get how the driver network has any value. I see all the value in the passenger network. Of course Uber wants self-driving cars to happen.

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

#294

Post by JonFish85 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #261
saosebastiao wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> would only estimate a 3-5x reduction in fleet size 10x is admittedly bullish. I expect 4 to 7x within 20 years, i.e. 3 to 4 product cycles. But 10x is more reasonable than it seems at face value. Let's use Manhattan to illustrate. Another HN user (wadenick) kindly provided [1] some references I'd like to point to. Car ownership across the United States stands at 81% of households [2]. In Manhattan it's 23% [3]. Man…

"Uber pays 75% of its earnings to its drivers. How much cheaper could a driverless be? 50% less?"

Remember that from that 75% is supposed to be things like insurance policies and such, and I suspect that currently drivers aren't bothering to properly insure their cars (using it for a business rather than personal use). In a driverless car case, someone is going to have to pay for that insurance, whether the manufacturer, operator or rider, that cost is going to come from someplace, and will probably be significant. I'm not sure that you could achieve 50% savings, and maybe not even 25%.

"All it takes is half of Manhattan's car-owning households to switch for Manhattan to hit a 7-fold reduction in car ownership from present-day America." But what does that prove? Manhattan isn't a great barometer of anything. Even if they did drop to 14% or so, that's not really moving the needle much either way, is it?

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

#296

Post by bduerst »

giarc wrote: post #113
tinkerrr wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying a stagnant company in a stagnant industry that almost died should remain stagnant and not try anything risky at all? It's not wild speculation for GM. They most likely have ways to work together. It's unlikely a completely passive investment.

As the article states, GM is going to help Lyft set up rental centres across the states. I imagine this means GM vehicles therefore GM is not only investing in Lyft, they also get people driving their vehicles and passengers sitting in those vehicles. It's almost advertisement.

It's an awareness piece for investors about GM's market investment into Lyft's new rental fleet.

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

#297

Post by rconti »

amyjess wrote: post #18
pmorici wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big difference for me is that Lyft allows you to tip in the app that's very telling.

Yes, especially since I've heard horror stories about Uber drivers one-starring customers for not carrying cash.

I've never heard of anyone tipping an Uber driver. I'm not sure why they'd know if I have cash or not.

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

#298

Post by lazaroclapp »

jlarocco wrote: post #278
frandroid wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We went from fliphone to total smartphone domination in 5 years. ABS is a sideshow, not a revolution. As soon as self-driven vehicles are market-ready, we'll see a massive car park upgrade within one car-generation, which I guess is 7 years. Droves of people will ditch their old cars just for the purpose of upgrading.

> We went from fliphone to total smartphone domination in 5 years. How can you even compare those things?!? A car easily costs 100 times what a phone does, and is literally being trusted with your life and the life of people around you. > Droves of people will ditch their old cars just for the purpose of upgrading. Back in the real world, a car is a major purchase and the majority of people couldn't afford to drop th…

I think if anything, the change will come in the form of new generations not buying their first car, rather than people with cars ditching them immediately for autonomous riding. For the generation that grew with cars as a symbol of status and adulthood and even national identity, the change might never come or take a long time. Kinda like how I watch Netflix and Amazon and Youtube, and read my news online, but most in my parents' generation watch tv and read paper newspapers. It's not just about the tech, is also the culture.

Also, if anything, it might be more important to incentivize people to switch to electric cars more so than self-driving ones, given the ecological impact. Anyone up for a 500% tax on gas by 2025? ;)

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

#299

Post by [deleted] »

jlarocco wrote: post #278
frandroid wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We went from fliphone to total smartphone domination in 5 years. ABS is a sideshow, not a revolution. As soon as self-driven vehicles are market-ready, we'll see a massive car park upgrade within one car-generation, which I guess is 7 years. Droves of people will ditch their old cars just for the purpose of upgrading.

> We went from fliphone to total smartphone domination in 5 years. How can you even compare those things?!? A car easily costs 100 times what a phone does, and is literally being trusted with your life and the life of people around you. > Droves of people will ditch their old cars just for the purpose of upgrading. Back in the real world, a car is a major purchase and the majority of people couldn't afford to drop th…

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