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Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

nytimes.com

111–120 of 157 posts

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my city, cars are parked everywhere, on the sides of every road, on sidewalks sometimes, now THAT is egregious!

A car parked on the street doesn't inconvenience me but a bike/scooter on the sidewalk does - every single day. I'm a cyclist myself. I do like the convenience of dockless bikes for drop offs.

Cars parked on the street are a huge inconvenience. They've just managed to formalize that inconvenience, and we forget about the fact that cars stole 85% of the street while people using their own feet are stuck sharing the other 15% with trash cans, telephone poles, and basically anything else in our public sphere.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

E-bikes are motor vehicles and can't be used on bike paths in NY state though they are street legal if registered. NYC park police actively ticket E-bikes on the west side.

How would one ticket an ebike since they have no registration or license numbers?

You ticket the driver.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#113
post #37

Can someone explain the economics of services like this? I just get the feeling that these bike-sharing services are running on a good sales pitch and a market which seems obvious but isn't really there. There are probably four or five competing services in my city and yet I have never actually seen a single person actually riding them. There are certainly people riding bikes but it's always their own bike. Complicat…

Unit economics make sense, since you don't have to pay a human for every trip. A $500 scooter, with about a $2-$3 charge per trip breaks even in 166-250 trips, which is about 83 days if there are 3 trips a day. So in 2-3 months the devices pay for themselves. Yes there is vandalism and paying chargers, but the general principle stays about the same. And if you have bikes then you don't need chargers, just occasional…

Using your numbers, that's $6-9 of total gross revenue per day, with up to 3 pickup/charge/redeploy charges per day. That would mean a lot of days with a net operating loss even before fixed costs and debt service are considered.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#114
We had a bike rental system launch in Cardiff very recently, run by NextBike. It has been a massive success, and fills a pretty gaping hole in our city's transportation. Cardiff is basically entirely flat, and has a few separate parts (like Cardiff Bay) which are a not-inconsiderable walk away, as well as a strangely awkward train journey. It's a city pretty well known for being easy to walk everywhere, but the bikes have made it so much simpler.

I signed up as an early adopter because 2 of the first 5 stations they installed essentially cut a 30 minute walk to the central train station into a 7 minute cycle. Cardiff was apparently NextBike's most successful UK city on the May bank holiday weekend. The bikes are largely well maintained and nobody seems to have vandalised them so far from what I've seen. Our cycle lanes are designed by blithering imbeciles, but that's pretty standard for the UK.

The ones here have docks, though they're in sensible places. I have seen a dockless system in Oxford and that also seemed to work well, mostly because of the sheer number of bikes around.

I know why the schemes are successful in Europe, but I can understand why people would be skeptical about their success in the US.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting that those Bird and Lime scooters are illegal in some countries, like the UK. Bird cannot expand to the UK without laws changing (which I'm sure there's plenty of lobbying going on to ensure).

Can you elaborate on the legality? In what way are they illegal?

Motor vehicles require a license plate and insurance to be legal

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're illegal in the same way that if you sticking four wheels on a fridge and driving it down the street is also illegal. They're not road worthy, and you can't use them on footpaths in the same way you can't cycle on footpaths.

FWIW I was just in london and saw a bunch of people riding their own Mi scooters in the street. (That's the same scooter Bird uses.)

I'm seeing more and more on my commute, but it's the difference between a few people buying their own from Alibaba and a company installing them across the city. The former's unlikely to draw attention from the police, the latter much more so.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#117
post #37

Can someone explain the economics of services like this? I just get the feeling that these bike-sharing services are running on a good sales pitch and a market which seems obvious but isn't really there. There are probably four or five competing services in my city and yet I have never actually seen a single person actually riding them. There are certainly people riding bikes but it's always their own bike. Complicat…

What you're missing is that bikes, and especially ebikes, are far more viable for transport than most Americans think. In Copenhagen for example bikes are actually the primary mode of transport, outnumbering cars on the roads. Bikes are literally the fastest way to get around in many places.

There are a number of reasons it doesn't work well in the States, but broadly it boils down to a) fitness levels, and b) cultural values, that is, spending on car infrastructure helps American car manufacturers, American dealerships, and American car owners, whereas diverting money to bike infrastructure benefits liberal hippies or something.

ebikes directly address the fitness problem, and there are various technical reasons why they have not been viable until now, mostly boiling down to an improved Li-Ion supply chain. That said, a good ebike is still very expensive, and the ridesharing model works here for the same reason that people spend $15 to take a Lyft downtown instead of buying a $25k sedan they own.

The infrastructure problem is harder, but perversely, these services may be able to crack that one too. Uber/Lyft are quite famously adept at strongarming local governments and just in general the political system is more responsive to moneyed interests than hobbyists. Were bicycling to go from liberal hippie pasttime to Real American Business™ that may resolve the political will to improve the infrastructure. Now adding a bikelane is supporting American innovation and jobs (somebody has to charge those bikes) rather than diverting resources from them.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#118

Lyft is doomed. They just can't keep up internally with what Uber is pushing into innovation. The boost Uber will get with their IPO will leave Lyft in the dust. Everyone needs an Avis and a Burger King I guess.

Your username is quite apt.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#119
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it breaks down to: 0-2miles - Scooters (or walk), 2-5miles - Electric Bikes (or Uber), 5-15miles - Uber/Lyft It is a nice little transportation stack Uber and Lyft are fighting over.

No room for buses, trains, or regular bicycles? The nice thing about a regular bicycle is the unlimited range. Whereas the nice thing about an electric bike is the speed. My personal hierarchy is more like this: 0-1 miles: walk 1-10 miles: e-bike or bus or lyft 10-100 miles: regular bike or train > 100 miles: car

No buses for me. I've given it a try many times but in SF, unless you're on a popular commuting line, it's filled with crazy, aggressive homeless people.

I've given up traveling via bike after losing my wheels to theft. My friend got his u-lock + loop locked bike's seat stolen while grabbing food to go at the Westfield food court around lunchtime.

> 10-100 miles: regular bike or train

SF to San Jose is 55 miles. To think you'd consider biking twice that is... crazy to me. More power to you I suppose.

Re: Lyft Follows Uber Into Bike-Sharing Lane, Buying Owner of CitiBike

#120
post #118

Lyft is doomed. They just can't keep up internally with what Uber is pushing into innovation. The boost Uber will get with their IPO will leave Lyft in the dust. Everyone needs an Avis and a Burger King I guess.

Your username is quite apt.

That's what everybody told me when I joined at a $800m valuation. Last I checked, uber took a down round an Lyft is 15b.
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