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G.M. Invests $500M in Lyft

nytimes.com

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

#371

Post by Retra »

danans wrote: post #259
Retra wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as cars aren't prohibitively expensive and remain symbols of personal freedom and identity, then people will pay for the luxury of not riding in public transportation.

Some people have an aversion to riding on public transit when it is used by people large income/wealth disparities, i.e. the professional doesn't want to be on the same bus as the indigent person. Those people might use a vehicle subscription, because the cost of private rides would still be lower than the costs of private vehicle ownership (depreciation, maintenance, insurance). Many people would pay for the privile…

I'm not talking about cars as status symbols, but as factors of identity. Teenagers want cars because it is a rite of passage. Half my coworkers want trucks because they are 'outdoors' people. And some do use it as a monetary status symbol. Some people are just car people who have strong opinions about the car they drive because it is part of their self-expression. This is a pretty big thing in American culture.

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

#372

Post by zepto »

JimmyAustin wrote: post #328
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars often get used as park-able, lock-able storage devices (for instance, people will often keep their gym clothes in their car, so that they can do work->gym->home instead of having gym clothes at work or doing work->home->gym->home). That's a big design feature that makes driving strangers around much less practical than it looks.

As convenient as a personal locker that follows you is, I don't think the average person is willing to spend 20k for one.

No but is there any reason a small cabinet on a segue-like platform should cost $20k?

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

#373

Post by lkbm »

stcredzero wrote: post #361
Merad wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I think this is just totally disconnected from the reality of the average American who lives outside of a major urban center. 1. Mom, dad, and kid all need to go to work/school at roughly the same time. If they all have a 15-20 minute commute (well below average for many areas) and the destinations for all three aren't in the same immediate vicinity, we're right back to the family needing 2-3 cars. 2. Eh, no.…

The average person's car is somewhere between messy and a pigsty. Give people an economic incentive for keeping a neat car, then you're going to see neat cars. This is clearly true for the current Uber and Lyft fleets.

Additionally, Car2Go and other car sharing services exist and they seem to have figured out how to keep things clean enough.

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

#374

Post by morgante »

amyjess wrote: post #186
morgante wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've taken over a hundred Uber rides and literally never tipped. Nor have I ever had a driver who gave me a bad look for not tipping them. It's not expected and Uber actively discourages drivers from soliciting tips. For the record, my rating was around 4.5 last time I checked so it doesn't seem like drivers are penalizing me for not tipping. Not having to do the mental/social gymnastics of tipping is a big feature o…

> For the record, my rating was around 4.5 last time I checked so it doesn't seem like drivers are penalizing me for not tipping. If you were a driver, a rating of 4.5 could get you kicked off the platform. So, yes, drivers are rating you poorly.

> If you were a driver, a rating of 4.5 could get you kicked off the platform. So, yes, drivers are rating you poorly.

Except I'm not a driver. 4.5 is, in any realistic rating system, perfectly fine.

Also, why do I care if you think I'm being rated poorly? It's not like it affects my experience in any way.

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

#375

Post by morgante »

amyjess wrote: post #178
k-mcgrady wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have evidence of this? I didn't think it was possible to find out what drivers rated you and it seems odd that they'd expect a cash tip when the point of the system is that it's cashless.

Here's one: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/uber-driver-complaints-e... > So we compiled a list of seven things you might be doing to annoy your Uber driver and destroy your rating. Avoid these behaviors to ensure a smooth ride for both you and your driver. > 2. You don't tip. From one of the biggest Uber driver blogs: http://therideshareguy.com/should-uber-passengers-tip-their-... > I often see drivers referring…

You're clearly trying to push some pro-tipping agenda, but if all you can cite is a single Uber driver blog (who of course wants you to tip) that's pretty flimsy evidence.

The vast majority of Uber riders do not tip. [1] There's not an expectation that you do (even the driver blog you cited admits that). I don't really know why you're trying to create this perception that it's expected, but it certainly isn't.

[1] http://www.cnet.com/news/to-tip-or-not-to-tip-drivers-that-i...

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

#376

Post by lkbm »

tomwalsham wrote: post #368
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'm in the 'sooner rather than later' camp, and have one more key driver. Insurance. As soon as human drivers are provably poorer than automated drivers, the cost to insure a meat driver goes up. It will not take long to build a very strong case for the lower risk profile once the early adopter vehicles take the road.

Why does it go up? The price isn't as high as it is because there's nothing better. It's based on the expected cost to the insurer, and that should drop when the predictability of the other vehicles on the road increases.

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

#377

Post by Tossrock »

crdb wrote: post #31
ForHackernews wrote: post #2

I don't know whether this is a real difference or not, but Lyft "feels" like a much nicer company than Uber. I'm not thrilled about Lyft's rampant hipster-branding, but Uber seems like a company run by pricks. Maybe it's just because they're the underdog, but I'm really rooting for Lyft.

> Uber seems like a company run by pricks I recently interviewed with Uber in Asia, spoke to a half dozen people there right up to the head of the region and many Americans who have been with the company for years, and I did not get the job (so, clearly not biased towards the company). Here's my one data point: they were all really nice, professional, competent people I'd actually want to work with. When I say nice,…

> (imagine what would happen if there was a rape or robbery attempt by an Uber driver)

This has already happened: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34578477

They did some really incredible PR on it (adding the "emergency" button, quick dissociation of the driver and the company, etc), and seem to have gotten off basically scot-free in of public opinion.

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

#379

Post by twistedpair »

danans wrote: post #137

My theory is that with the ever increasing reliability of cars, they aren't being replaced as often due to low utilization (sitting idle most of the day). Having a more highly utilized fleet of vehicles will mean they get replaced more often. This isn't a big vehicle sales growth strategy, but it could be a way to preserve vehicle sales, while keeping a foot in the door of the future. They might even be able to get a…

Correct. If my car drives me to work, then drives other people around all day, it will rack up miles far faster than before. Now, instead of driving 12K mi per year, it can rack up 60K mi per year. I'll need a new car every 3 years.

Luckily, it can also schedule maintenance and drive itself to the dealer too.

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

#380

Post by laichzeit0 »

ssmoot wrote: post #240
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 think it's crazy unrealistic that autonomous cars will be the majority in anything short of 20 to 30 years. The tech doesn't even exist yet. It's taken that long just to see ABS become standard equipment across 90% of vehicles. And this just completely ignores the ~5 to 7 year product cycle. There's no way that in just one or two generations of the Taurus we have a completely self-driving car capable of operating i…

I don't see why we couldn't just add more intelligence to the roads to make it easier for cars to navigate.

Before we didn't have tar roads with road signs and traffic lights, etc. It would be infinitely more feasible to make roads more clever than trying to cram human-like driving intelligence into car AI.

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