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Lyft Announces Strategic Partnership with Didi
- jbob2000 11y agoI smell a buyout or merger coming. They can't take on Uber individually.
- umeshunni 11y agoAgree. The best case for Lyft is that they enable a major international player (Didi, Ola etc) to enter the US market. Similar to what UrbanSpoon did for Zomato (vs Yelp).
- tedmiston 11y agoDon't we think transportation is big enough that both Uber and Lyft can coexist "peacefully"? Especially with Uber experimenting into non-ride services on top of their infrastructure, like food delivery, etc. Maybe I haven't followed closely enough, but my understanding is that Lyft is still really focused on just making a good, friendly, affordable ride option.
- prawn 11y agoIf one eventual use for these services is as a smart-routed bus of sorts, why can't one of the companies tackling Uber jump straight to that? Or at least make a serious experiment of it?
- rory096 11y agoThat's basically Lyft Line[1], which offers fixed price $5 (at least in Manhattan[2], not sure about other markets) smart routed shared taxis. Seems like buses would just be a matter of improving routing further and scaling each vehicle up. [1] https://www.lyft.com/line https://www.lyft.com/line [2] http://blog.lyft.com/posts/highfivenyc http://blog.lyft.com/posts/highfivenyc
- SilasX 11y agoYeah, you can imagine it as a continuum: as you go from left to right, you have lower convenience (how far out of your route or schedule it takes you), longer trips, and lower costs, and vice versa. On the left end would be a private, dedicated chauffer. (Or private helicopter for extreme left!) On the right end would be public transit or walking. Putting transit options on the continuum would look like: Private Chauffer -- Personal Car -- Taxi -- Livery/Lyft/Uber -- Lyft Line/UberPool -- Lyft Line + Hotspots -- <potential new bus-like offerings> -- public transit -- walking My earlier comment on the continuum: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10122701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10122701
- tedmiston 11y agoThat's an elegant way to think about it. Perhaps one slight deviation in Lyft Line is is when other people being picked up by your car are running late [0]. 0: Personal experience in SF in October.
- chimeracoder 11y ago> Perhaps one slight deviation in Lyft Line is is when other people being picked up by your car are running late [0]. FYI, the Lyft driver is supposed to wait no longer than one minute. If they wait longer than that, you can prod them to move on (or mention that in their review). I spent this summer in SF and took a Lyft Line home every day. This was only an issue once, and the driver left after ~1 minute, so it didn't actually delay my ride at all.
- SilasX 11y agoI'm not sure what you mean; that's consistent with the continuum. It's less convenient (more stops not on your route) and takes longer than regular Lyft, and in return it costs less.
- tedmiston 11y agoI thought of the abrupt stop as a deviation in convenience / increase in time (out of your control) that doesn't happen on public transit.
- wittekm 11y agoA number have tried, and failed. Interestingly, the following three failed as a function of being based in transit-legislation-heavy San Francisco: * Loup * Leap * Night School My understanding is that Chariot is still operating and doing well, though.
- gorkemyurt 11y agoAll of them "failed" for legal reasons, not because there weren't making enough money, with enough funding legal reasons also vanish..
- oconnore 11y agoEspecially given that most drivers I've seen use both the apps, and other operating costs are pretty slim.
- brianbreslin 11y agocustomer acquisition costs are high, and driver acquisition costs are very high.
- tedmiston 11y agoAt least, as long as drivers are human [0]. ;p 0: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/01/27/how-ubers-autonomous-cars-will-destroy-10-million-jobs-and-reshape-the-economy-by-2025-lyft-google-zack-kanter/ http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/01/27/how-ubers-autono...
- dylanjermiah 11y agoIt's the worldwide presence where Uber had the massive advantage. If Didi/Ola/Lyft/Others decide to merge/parter only than will they stand a chance.
- beatpanda 11y agoThe point of Uber isn't to fix transportation, it's to feed Travis Kalanick's god complex. So, no, they won't be able to co-exist peacefully.
- dylanjermiah 11y agoWhat evidence do you have to support this? What personal knowledge to do you have to support this? What accompanying expertise do you have to support this? It's odd to me that people with (assumingly) no knowledge on the matter feel they can aptly deduce complex situations into one sound bite of a sentence.
- beatpanda 11y agoThe fact that the company is called Uber, which is an obvious reference to Nietzsche's idea of the Ubermensch. The fact that Kalanick has said, publicly, that the point of starting the company was to enable his already-rich friends to "be baller" in San Francisco. The fact that he had Uber build a thing called "God Mode" into their software so that he could watch famous people come and go on the service and occasionally put that enormous power on display to other powerful people. He's a raging, power-hungry narcissistic sociopath, in public, all the time. This isn't guess work. The parent of my original post is suggesting that Uber exists for reasons other than the ones Kalanick has given in public, and that's just silly.
- dsacco 11y agoI can appreciate a point about someone violating privacy by building that particular feature, but your comment is so caustic and accusatory it's just noise, not a valid addition to a legitimate debate. You cannot call someone a "raging, power-hungry narcissistic sociopath" or accuse him of having a "god complex" for 1. wanting to build a successful company catering to rich people or 2. naming a company after a Nietzschian ideal. Does NASA have a god complex because they used the name Apollo? Your points about Travis do not seem to be informed by reason or experience with the man. In fact, it just seems as though you're emotionally invested to the point of complete and utter bias.
- gorkemyurt 11y agoHappened to me last week in San Francisco; an Uber driver accepted a Lyft pickup, as I was still in the car for my Uber ride..
- wingerlang 11y agoHow does that work? How did the Uber driver get a hold of the Lyft costumer?
- horatiumocian 11y agoI assume he was also a Lyft driver and was accepting rides on both apps.
- wingerlang 11y agoAh, makes sense.
- gorkemyurt 11y agoyep, exactly
- marcinkw 11y agoI don't think so. I think they're much better off focusing the product on one specific market. The partnership would let people use the basic service and if they wanted to use market specific feature like Lyft Line or Ola Food, they would have to download the app for that local market.
- jbob2000 11y agoI disagree. If Lyft goes too deep into a specific market, then they risk Uber using their dominance in another market to push them out of this one. They need to compete on all fronts to keep Uber away from their cash cow.
- r00fus 11y agoCan you please explain that? How can Uber's strength in other regions impact performance in a specific one?
- jbob2000 11y agoConsumers in the app-hire/ride-share market aren't stuck to one market; Someone who uses Lyft-Line may also use UberX. If Uber release "Uber-Line", and Lyft doesn't have a comparable "LyftX", then there's no reason to use Lyft anymore. Everything you need is in Uber.
- whitcrrd 11y agodidn't lyft recently stop (or at least announce its intention to stop) its international expansion to focus domestically?
- tswartz 11y ago>As part of our global partnership, Didi also invested $100 million in Lyft. Hmmm..very interesting. Looks like Didi is trying to get more aggressive in Uber's own backyard.
- mikedb 11y agoWould be interesting to know who gets the revenue when using another app.
- bosdev 11y agoAssuming that Didi didn't have the resources to expand into the US directly (and god knows Lyft isn't going into China any time soon), I think this is a great deal. It allows Didi to maintain a reasonable modicum of pressure on Uber and dip its toes into the US market without any significant resource outlay. It doesn't though help Lyft to compete with Uber any better than the somewhat lackluster job they've done of it in the past couple of years. Perhaps the money, and the advertising it allows, will help. There is still a significant proportion of people who have never used Uber or Lyft, what the companies do to capture them is going to be very interesting.
- RandallBrown 11y agoIs Lyft doing a lackluster job competing with Uber? My friends and I all use Lyft and I hardly know anyone that uses Uber. This is in Seattle.
- dylanjermiah 11y agoUber is doing 10x more revenue and 20x more bookings(last time I saw stats, which was 1-2 years ago)
- Silfen 11y agoAnd here's the problem with anecdata: Most people I know use both, or Uber exclusively. This is also in Seattle.
- pbreit 11y agoI think it's relatively uncontroversial that Uber is substantially larger than Lyft in most or all markets. But Lyft also appears to be maintaining its share and even growing it in many markets, where many left it for dead.
- gkoberger 11y agoCalling it a "Strategic Partnership" right in the blog post seems so... business-y. Their whole brand is being Uber's cooler cousin. Why not say "You can now use Lyft in China!", and go from there? (EDIT: removed third-person stuff because it wasn't relevant to my point; thanks gkop)
- gkop 11y agoI'm having trouble understanding your point. Yes, using the proper name "Lyft" in describing themselves is the third-person, but that's exactly what you do in your suggestion. And the author of the post mostly uses the pronouns "we" and "our," the first-person, not the third-person.
- gkoberger 11y agoYou caught me going against my own complaint :) I guess the difference is that theirs refers to the company, whereas mine refers to the product.
- tedmiston 11y agoI see Lyft more as Uber's more frugal, down-to-earth cousin.
- marincounty 11y agoI view Lyft as the friendly, reasonable, still studying, humble struggling Actor. I view Uber as the demanding, narcisstic, dictatorial, know-it-all, spoiled, "I only want the green M & M's" Actor. Kinda kidding? I see too many desperate people buying into Uber's marketing, and buying that specific 4 door car, going into debt, and ruining their credit.
- brianbreslin 11y agoI smell a merger. Didi already merged with its main chinese competitor, raised a ton of money recently, and is expanding faster than Uber in china. This seems like a perfect fit. Lyft seems to not have their shit together the way Uber does (even if their company SEEMS more friendly to employees and drivers).
- gorkemyurt 11y agoI still think there is potential in Lyft's original idea "Ride sharing" rather than a taxi competitor that both of these companies have become. Really curious why such an option still doesnt exist: "I am driving from Soma to Palo Alto so just notify me about the customers trying to do the same thing" Lyft shouldn't be anyone's full time or part time job. In my opinion that's the only way they can co-exist with Uber.
- adventured 11y agoLyft is Twitter to Uber's Facebook. They should accept being a tenth the size of Uber, and having a meaningful business, instead of trying to compete head-on with Uber and destroying their potential. Investors of course don't like that premise, as a $3 or $5 billion market cap won't cut it after taking a billion dollars in VC.
- mokkos 11y agoLyft already has it, and it's in the app if you are a driver and the region supports Lyft Line. You set a destination you are driving to, and it'll match up with any Lyft Line passenger going sorta same direction: https://drivers.lyft.com/customer/portal/articles/1778131-destination-filter-passengers-going-your-way-?b_id=3241 https://drivers.lyft.com/customer/portal/articles/1778131-de...
- macNchz 11y ago>"I am driving from Soma to Palo Alto so just notify me about the customers trying to do the same thing" This exactly BlaBlaCar's* thing...unfortunately they have no plans to come to the U.S. I live in NYC and unlike most people here I have my own car. I often drive to nearby cities to visit friends. I would LOVE to have a widely used service like this, I'm so jealous to see, for example, BlaBlaCar's listings for people looking to share a ride from Paris to Lyon this Friday evening. [1] https://www.blablacar.com/ https://www.blablacar.com/
- chimeracoder 11y ago> This exactly BlaBlaCar's* thing...unfortunately they have no plans to come to the U.S. I live in NYC and unlike most people here I have my own car. I often drive to nearby cities to visit friends. Lyft Line already does this, and it's available in NYC. I'm not sure if it works between cities, but within the NYC metro area you should be fine.
- matznerd 11y agoIs it just me or did the phrasing in the following sentence make it seem like they were helping with rides from the US to China... > We are partnering with China’s largest rideshare company, Didi, to make it easier for people to get friendly, safe and reliable rides when they travel between the U.S. and China.
- billforsternz 11y agoIt's not just you.
- fs111 11y agowords to stop using in blog posts: "mission", "reconnect", "communities". Can you please talk like normal people instead of this marketing bla bla?
- hardwaresofton 11y agoI understand the sentiment, but isn't that unlikely? That's like asking startups to stop using the long landing page design that's become so popular lately. The PR department (if the resources even exist) is interested (usually) in expressing information without "rocking the boat", one way to do that is probably to avoid treading new ground where prose/wording is concerned.
- fs111 11y agoI am just allergic to this "we are changing the world" speak, when all you offer is a Taxi service. They did not fly to Mars or anything. They offer a service where you can order a car to go from A to B. This is not a "mission", they just make money. They are not "reconnecting" anyone, I just have to go to places, you know, to do stuff. Maybe I am just bitter...
- hardwaresofton 11y agoYeah it's definitely hyperbole most of the time. In Uber's case it might be more truth than hyperbole though, since the taxi racket is pretty widespread, and they're actually changing how people travel (which is something large swaths of people do).
- blumkvist 11y agoCan you please stop having unfounded opinions on corporate mass communication?
- rahimnathwani 11y agoThis could be great for both companies in the long term, but in the short term they need to solve the language barrier problem. I assert that the vast majority of Lyft users (and even the subset that intends to visit China in 2016) do not speak Chinese. Furthermore, >99.5% of Didi's current rides are for Chinese passengers, and very few of their drivers speak English. This isn't just a problem for Lyft/Didi. I have used Uber 18 times in the past week, exclusively in China. On all 18 occasions, I received a phone call from the driver within 100 seconds of allocation. They asked me to confirm my current location, and my destination. I did this in Chinese. 2 or 3 of the drivers had passable English. The other drivers would have failed to communicate with a non-Chinese-speaking visitor from the US. Uber is experimenting with solving this by adding an additional 'English' service next to the existing UberX, People's Uber etc. But they don't have many drivers who can speak English, so the quoted wait times for that service are something like 5x the wait time for People's Uber. Didi isn't as reliant on foreigners for growth, so what is their incentive to attract English-speaking drivers who can adequately serve Lyft customers?
- contingencies 11y agoYour premise that drivers need to speak English is incorrect. We are talking about two parties with aligned goals, smartphones and automated translation tools available, even human translators available by phone if required. However, I agree with your statement that foreigners are nearly irrelevant to the vehicle booking market in China. Frankly this move sounds like it's mostly about marketing hype.
- rahimnathwani 11y ago"Your premise that drivers need to speak English is incorrect." Next time you have non-Chinese-speaking friends visiting you in China, have them try to get around using Ubers, without your help. I'd be very surprised if their successful journeys (picked up and dropped off in correct places) are more than 50% of the total. With a taxi hailed in the street, you just need the destination address on a business card or piece of paper. With Uber, it was often a challenge for them to find you to pick you up, before they started calling every time.