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Lyft Plus

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41–50 of 110 posts

Re: Lyft Plus

#41
post #17
post #8

How can companies get away with saying things like 'the most affordable premium option' without providing any pricing information whatsoever? Why do they even think that it is acceptable to do so?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery its real, deal.

oh so there is a legal term for "peacockin'"

Re: Lyft Plus

#42

The thing seats six, which is overkill for a typical ride of one to three people. I guess they are going for a Super Shuttle kind of market of carting around assorted distinct customers. A souped up Explorer does beat a Ford van. But as anyone who has ridden in a Super Shuttle can tell you, it takes too long and doesn't save you much money over a cab anyway.

I think the market is for groups of people out partying (which in my group averages 4-6) who don't want to split up. Fitting 4 people into a Civic + driver is already uncomfortable so paying a small premium to keep the group moving together makes a lot of sense in urban markets.

Re: Lyft Plus

#43
post #8

How can companies get away with saying things like 'the most affordable premium option' without providing any pricing information whatsoever? Why do they even think that it is acceptable to do so?

Surely you aren't proposing any limit on free corporate speech.

Re: Lyft Plus

#44
The phone chargers are a small, but very big improvement. Snacks I could be whatever about, but getting 10% extra juice in my phone during a taxi ride could make the difference for me between requesting an uber ride or this.

Re: Lyft Plus

#45
post #25

Do they still require Facebook? I don't have a Facebook account. I wanted to try/use this service in SF but was disappointed when it required me to sign into Facebook.

Got so tired of this that I have reactivated mine, but I don't use it except for these logins.

Re: Lyft Plus

#46
post #34

I always thought the mustache cars were Uber. I barely even knew about lyft ... but there's the mustache and ... Hopefully this is useful to marketing/awareness people at either Uber or Lyft ... I can't be the only one that has this completely wrong in their head.

Uber has always been the black car, and now they have glowy stickers. Pink mustaches have always been Lyft's gig.

Don't think your mix-up is too common. =P

Re: Lyft Plus

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like they're staying out of that. The plan seems to be sell these cars to their top Lyft drivers, with the promise of more ride money. From: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/8/5694720/lyft-goes-after-ube... "[Lyft is] purchasing the vehicles and having them outfitted, but then drivers have the opportunity to buy them and drive in them. The first crop of drivers given the chance to buy into that are some of the ol…

Who in their right mind would invest in one of these? You're taking a serious risk that one day you might not be able to make a living with your swank, expensive luxury SUV. Or is there so much earning potential there over the top of regular Lyft rates that it's worth rolling the dice?

I was wondering the same thing, but I'm sure they ran the numbers and gauged driver interest before launch. Quite curious to see how it turns out.

Re: Lyft Plus

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Friendliness is always important in customer interaction. 2. Chick-fil-A is an example of "friendliness" scaling up to x0,000 employees. 3. No, being nice is not a straightjacket in the making.

Yeah, super friendly - unless you're gay!

The one near me sponsors a pride parade every year, so I guess some things don't scale that well :p

Re: Lyft Plus

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like they're staying out of that. The plan seems to be sell these cars to their top Lyft drivers, with the promise of more ride money. From: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/8/5694720/lyft-goes-after-ube... "[Lyft is] purchasing the vehicles and having them outfitted, but then drivers have the opportunity to buy them and drive in them. The first crop of drivers given the chance to buy into that are some of the ol…

Who in their right mind would invest in one of these? You're taking a serious risk that one day you might not be able to make a living with your swank, expensive luxury SUV. Or is there so much earning potential there over the top of regular Lyft rates that it's worth rolling the dice?

We threw around some wild-ass guesses as to the numbers in the office, and came up with the idea that it's probably a bit better to be a Lyft+ driver than a Lyft driver, assuming (and this is a big if) that Lyft can deliver you a similar volume of rides.

The big thing is that this Ford Explorer is probably not a lot more expensive than a Prius is. Priuses tend to cost about $30,000 all in. Ford Explorers start at $30,000. Assume $10,000 in after-market add-ons, but then assume that Lyft negotiates your base price down to $25,000 because they're buying a bunch of them, you're only an additional $5,000 in the hole compared to a Prius. Gas is twice what a Prius owner pays.

And they're charging twice what Lyft ordinarily costs.

So, basically, if they can deliver the same number of rides, your gross is twice as high, your costs are something on the order of twice as high or actually a bit less than that, means that your take-home pay is probably about 150% what a normal Lyft driver makes.

Again, the big if here is whether you are in fact getting the same volume of rides that the downmarket offering is. And the question there is how much supply Lyft wants to put on the road. Are they willing to have more failed rides in order to support their drivers' incomes? Is the demand for a Lyft premium option there at all? Alternately, is the demand really high and you're going to be surging (yeah, yeah: "prime time tipping") more often and making a higher gross? Nobody knows right now.

Disclaimer: I work for Flywheel, a Lyft competitor.

Re: Lyft Plus

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like they're staying out of that. The plan seems to be sell these cars to their top Lyft drivers, with the promise of more ride money. From: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/8/5694720/lyft-goes-after-ube... "[Lyft is] purchasing the vehicles and having them outfitted, but then drivers have the opportunity to buy them and drive in them. The first crop of drivers given the chance to buy into that are some of the ol…

Who in their right mind would invest in one of these? You're taking a serious risk that one day you might not be able to make a living with your swank, expensive luxury SUV. Or is there so much earning potential there over the top of regular Lyft rates that it's worth rolling the dice?

Agreed. It seems like the "right" thing to do if you're running a personal taxi service is to buy a reliable used car in the high tens of thousands of miles, and then drive it until it dies. Buying a new car -- you'd have to make thousands of dollars more per year to justify the depreciation.
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