10 ms·

Their continued spending spree to incentivize riders suggests otherwise. Uber seems to only give a first trip incentive, but I've gotten hundreds of dollars wor

Their continued spending spree to incentivize riders suggests otherwise. Uber seems to only give a first trip incentive, but I've gotten hundreds of dollars worth of free trips, 50% off trips, etc with Lyft. If riders aren't sticking around (and all the money they seem to be throwing around suggests that they aren't), then it doesn't seem to be defying any expectations. I'd expect a free or half-priced alternative to do well, I just wouldn't expect it to be a good business. I think it's telling that they didn't have any traditional investors in their most recent round. VCs seem to want nothing to do with Lyft at this point. Only time will tell if GM is a better investor than every VC who passed. I suspect that they're not and that Lyft doesn't have much of a business (Line trips are likely never profitable, and they seem to have a problem keeping riders around that Uber doesn't seem to have).

toomuchtodo 11y ago
Let's assume self-driving cars take off in <5 years. That means that this isn't "winner take all". It means its a commodity that's going to be driven down to razor thin margins. In that case, neither Lyft nor Uber have much of a business, and VCs are better off burning their money in a barrel. Tesla's Autopilot can already do most of the driving on the highway, and the latest software release has the car driving in our out of your garage with no human intervention (it'll even open and close the garage door for you). Google's self driving tech has already mastered a majority of city driving. We're getting to a fully autonomous self driving future faster than most realize. EDIT: Tesla charges $2500 for the autopilot feature, so far argument's sake, I'm going to say that cost won't be a problem. There's no way fully autonomous vehicles are going to require an expensive roof-mounted laser scanner; laser scanning gear? qualified maybe, as there are a few components manufacturers making solid scanner laser scanners (no moving parts). Also, some recent tech out of MIT is (supposedly) drastically better at 3D scanning with polarized camera filters than a laser.
- pbreit 11y ago
  I have a feeling truly driverless operation will be slower than we think.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    I seriously believe it'll be here in no more than 3 years, maybe 5 if there are regulatory hurdles. There's just too much value to capture for everyone to be half-assing it. EDIT: Citations "Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report | December 2015" https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//selfdrivingcar/files/reports/report-1215.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en... "We’re currently averaging 10,000-15,000 autonomous miles per week on public streets" There are ~100K Model S vehicles. Somewhere around VIN 55K is when autopilot hardware was introduced (http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/44787-Autopilot-production-start-VIN-and-or-date http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/44787-Autopilo...). Let's conservatively say that there are 40K Model S vehicles out there with self-driving hardware that are refining their data, and consequently, algorithms Tesla is updating. 40K vehicles * 12K miles/year/vehicle (average) = 40,000,000 miles/month (!!!) in "autonomous experience" Tesla is gaining. (Fun fact: The average human drives ~500K miles in their lifetime) "According to Fred Lambert from Electrek, Musk referred to the first round of Model S owners with Autopilot as "expert trainers" that will collect and deliver tons of important data for Tesla's intelligence network. Musk said the system should improve each week as the driving algorithm constantly updates, adding Model S drivers could add around 1 million miles of new data every day." http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musk-explains-tesla-autopilot-2015-10 http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musk-explains-tesla-autopilot... That's a lot of progress being made each month.
    - JoshTriplett 11y ago
      Never underestimate the volume of regulatory hurdles. I'd bet on decades of needless delay. Half of it caused by the first time people hear on the news about a self-driving car in an accident and ignore all the statistics showing they're actually far safer.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - enraged_camel 11y ago
        I think regulatory hurdles will be introduced by politicians not due to safety concerns, but based on jobs. The conversation will switch from "immigrants are stealing our jobs!" to "robots are stealing our jobs!"
- viscanti 11y ago
  > Let's assume self-driving cars take off in <5 years. That means that this isn't "winner take all". It means its a commodity that's going to be driven down to razor thin margins. In that case, neither Lyft nor Uber have much of a business, and VCs are better off burning their money in a barrel. Possibly. But Uber raised 1B at the same time. So that suggests that the VC world still believes in the Uber model (or that they think Uber comes out as one of the winners in self driving cars). The fact that Lyft failed to get any traditional investors suggests that those investors believe there is a significant difference.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - vonklaus 11y ago
    Lyft and uber are competing in 2 completely different spaces. Uber is most similar to a company like the nasdaq and lyft is pretty similar to a cable company that existed in a liquid market. Uber is an information arbitrageur. They make markets and have high velocity. By this I mean they are well capitalized and all of their money is spent on people and developing software. Google collects and organizes the worlds information, uber it's movements. Lyft, like fed x, runs ligistics and information analytics but largely inside of its own narrow domain here being last mile transportation. Lyft focuses on comfort and style and is modeled on something like virgin airlines. It will continue to make money (i have reversed my thinking here) but not a lot as the industry becomes commoditized. Uber will pivot into something like a CDN in a few years doing end to end delivery or will become software vendors of autopilot technology. Obviously, I dont know what each company will do, but they are super different
    - johnloeber 11y ago
      This is wrong. The analogies you make are tenuous. They're doing business in the exact same space. One is much bigger than the other. Their differences are due to their relative positioning in the market, i.e. due to the opportunities they have as a consequence of their relative scale.
  - 11y ago
- ambicapter 11y ago
  I've only seen that autopilot work on a straight, gravel driveway. No way it works on my driveway: A steep incline followed by 90º turn.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- enjo 11y ago
  Where is my fancy self driving car supposed to park? Cause until that's a solved problem there will always be a place for Lyft.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Yours? Or the one you use with a ridesharing service? If its yours, your own garage. If you're in an urban area, I'd assume ridesharing services would use lights out parking garages when they're overcapacity. A car sits idle 95% of the time. That's why GM invested in Lyft. They see a future where there's a need for drastically fewer vehicles to service mobility needs. Yes, yes, rush hour handwaving. You use economic incentives to solve that.
  - Tloewald 11y ago
    Self-driving cars don't need to park at a destination. They just find the next rider. Privately owned self-driving cars can drive themselves to a carpark that's arbitrarily inconvenient to get to (which will greatly increase congestion, so let's hope that self-driving cars turn out to mainly be used as taxis).
- fma 11y ago
  General Motors just invested $500 million in Lyft, and will partner to provide vehicles today and autonomous vehicle technology as it develops in the future. GM has already committed to autonomous cars in the past, but it got more real when they threw half a billions dollars in the ring and partnered with Lyft.
- frik 11y ago
  Driver-less cars will take off at sunny locations like California, Nevada, etc. But it will take longer for other weather conditions you will find in winter at other locations - a combination of snow/rain and evening sun rays are a showstopper for current LIDAR and camera based systems.
pbreit 11y ago
VCs don't really do $5b rounds. I'm curious where Lyft investors Founders Fund and A16Z think its gonna go.
jmckib 11y ago
Where are you getting all of these discounts? I've used Lyft ~80 times this year, and I've never seen a coupon that isn't just for first-time riders.
- hiharryhere 11y ago
  I stopped using lyft after moving from SF to Manhattan where yellow cabs are cheap and plentiful. Since I stopped using lyft regularly I've received loads of "50% off for your next 10 rides" style offers. I think they are designed to reactivate previously frequent users.
  - jmckib 11y ago
    Thanks, looks like I'll be switching back to Uber for a little bit.
- rhino369 11y ago
  I got some deal with take five rides and get 50 dollar credit (5 dollars per ride). I'm in DC. I took them up on it. It's pretty much the same experience as uber. I don't see the same sort of network effects that keep something like Facebook as a monopoly. I think we'll have several companies in this market in 20 years.
- tedmiston 11y ago
  Maybe you ride so much that you're outside of the segments they're trying to incentivize. I've used it five times in the past year, and they sent me a half dozen emails in October through December: > Take two more 5-star rides by 12/1/15 to get $50, good for $5 off your next 10 rides!
- dawhizkid 11y ago
  http://imgur.com/mHNm6ai http://imgur.com/mHNm6ai
TeMPOraL 11y ago
> Uber seems to only give a first trip incentive Maybe in the markets they've already established themselves in. Here in Poland, they're basically throwing money at people. Every other week I hear that there's ~$7 worth promo code to be found somewhere. Or that they'll deliver you ice creams. Or donuts to work. Or something.
- tedmiston 11y ago
  If it's like the U.S., only the first promo code you use on your account gets honored for most of them. And the Uber Ice Cream, etc. they charge a decent amount for -- It was $20 for 5 ice cream bars in Ohio last time they ran it.
ErikVandeWater 11y ago
I'm not sure I agree that VC's not investing in Lyft is a bad sign for Lyft's long-term success. Those who have invested in Lyft recently make good sense as investors. Carl Icahn isn't exactly dumb money, and can probably add a unique perspective. GM makes sense because it is a very good long-term partner: Autonomous vehicles will be a big part of the future, and when that time comes, Lyft will have a highly-qualified partner to bring a fleet to market.
- viscanti 11y ago
  The point isn't that they've never had VCs or 'smart money' (we could debate Carl Icahn's smartness for tech), it's that their latest round of $750M didn't have any. They have GM and a Saudi prince making up the entire round. Neither of those likely meet even a liberal definition of 'smart money'.
argonaut 11y ago
> I think it's telling that they didn't have any traditional investors in their most recent round. No, it's not telling at all. If you're trying to raise $500M, you don't have many choices. You're looking at 1) IPO, 2) private equity, 3) strategic investors. IPO has obvious problems. The fact that Lyft chose strategic investors doesn't say much. I'm sure there were tons of Asian private equity funds clamoring to invest.
- viscanti 11y ago
  > If you're trying to raise $500M, you don't have many choices. Every other unicorn in the world suggests otherwise. This is the first large round by either GM or the Saudi prince. The Saudi prince isn't even a strategic investor, he's just a guy with a deep bank account. VCs and Private Equity Firms have been incredibly active in later stage rounds for Unicorns. Late state rounds almost never have a single investor. That's true for Lyft this round. It's telling that they couldn't find any of the more traditional investors to invest (even for a part of the $250M they weren't able to sell).
  - argonaut 11y ago
    No, all the unicorns get their funding from the same options I just outlined. The Saudi prince invests through his private equity sovereign wealth fund. Also wrong on the single investor. Firstly, we don't know that GM was the only investor in the round. It is common not to name all the investors. For example, in Uber's recent private equity round, Baidu was the investor, and other investors, if any, were not announced.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

Let's assume self-driving cars take off in <5 years. That means that this isn't "winner take all". It means its a commodity that's going to be driven down to razor thin margins. In that case, neither Lyft nor Uber have much of a business, and VCs are better off burning their money in a barrel. Tesla's Autopilot can already do most of the driving on the highway, and the latest software release has the car driving in our out of your garage with no human intervention (it'll even open and close the garage door for you). Google's self driving tech has already mastered a majority of city driving. We're getting to a fully autonomous self driving future faster than most realize. EDIT: Tesla charges $2500 for the autopilot feature, so far argument's sake, I'm going to say that cost won't be a problem. There's no way fully autonomous vehicles are going to require an expensive roof-mounted laser scanner; laser scanning gear? qualified maybe, as there are a few components manufacturers making solid scanner laser scanners (no moving parts). Also, some recent tech out of MIT is (supposedly) drastically better at 3D scanning with polarized camera filters than a laser.

pbreit 11y ago
I have a feeling truly driverless operation will be slower than we think.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  I seriously believe it'll be here in no more than 3 years, maybe 5 if there are regulatory hurdles. There's just too much value to capture for everyone to be half-assing it. EDIT: Citations "Google Self-Driving Car Project Monthly Report | December 2015" https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//selfdrivingcar/files/reports/report-1215.pdf https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en... "We’re currently averaging 10,000-15,000 autonomous miles per week on public streets" There are ~100K Model S vehicles. Somewhere around VIN 55K is when autopilot hardware was introduced (http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/44787-Autopilot-production-start-VIN-and-or-date http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/44787-Autopilo...). Let's conservatively say that there are 40K Model S vehicles out there with self-driving hardware that are refining their data, and consequently, algorithms Tesla is updating. 40K vehicles * 12K miles/year/vehicle (average) = 40,000,000 miles/month (!!!) in "autonomous experience" Tesla is gaining. (Fun fact: The average human drives ~500K miles in their lifetime) "According to Fred Lambert from Electrek, Musk referred to the first round of Model S owners with Autopilot as "expert trainers" that will collect and deliver tons of important data for Tesla's intelligence network. Musk said the system should improve each week as the driving algorithm constantly updates, adding Model S drivers could add around 1 million miles of new data every day." http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musk-explains-tesla-autopilot-2015-10 http://www.techinsider.io/elon-musk-explains-tesla-autopilot... That's a lot of progress being made each month.
  - JoshTriplett 11y ago
    Never underestimate the volume of regulatory hurdles. I'd bet on decades of needless delay. Half of it caused by the first time people hear on the news about a self-driving car in an accident and ignore all the statistics showing they're actually far safer.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - enraged_camel 11y ago
      I think regulatory hurdles will be introduced by politicians not due to safety concerns, but based on jobs. The conversation will switch from "immigrants are stealing our jobs!" to "robots are stealing our jobs!"
viscanti 11y ago
> Let's assume self-driving cars take off in <5 years. That means that this isn't "winner take all". It means its a commodity that's going to be driven down to razor thin margins. In that case, neither Lyft nor Uber have much of a business, and VCs are better off burning their money in a barrel. Possibly. But Uber raised 1B at the same time. So that suggests that the VC world still believes in the Uber model (or that they think Uber comes out as one of the winners in self driving cars). The fact that Lyft failed to get any traditional investors suggests that those investors believe there is a significant difference.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- vonklaus 11y ago
  Lyft and uber are competing in 2 completely different spaces. Uber is most similar to a company like the nasdaq and lyft is pretty similar to a cable company that existed in a liquid market. Uber is an information arbitrageur. They make markets and have high velocity. By this I mean they are well capitalized and all of their money is spent on people and developing software. Google collects and organizes the worlds information, uber it's movements. Lyft, like fed x, runs ligistics and information analytics but largely inside of its own narrow domain here being last mile transportation. Lyft focuses on comfort and style and is modeled on something like virgin airlines. It will continue to make money (i have reversed my thinking here) but not a lot as the industry becomes commoditized. Uber will pivot into something like a CDN in a few years doing end to end delivery or will become software vendors of autopilot technology. Obviously, I dont know what each company will do, but they are super different
  - johnloeber 11y ago
    This is wrong. The analogies you make are tenuous. They're doing business in the exact same space. One is much bigger than the other. Their differences are due to their relative positioning in the market, i.e. due to the opportunities they have as a consequence of their relative scale.
- 11y ago
ambicapter 11y ago
I've only seen that autopilot work on a straight, gravel driveway. No way it works on my driveway: A steep incline followed by 90º turn.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
enjo 11y ago
Where is my fancy self driving car supposed to park? Cause until that's a solved problem there will always be a place for Lyft.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Yours? Or the one you use with a ridesharing service? If its yours, your own garage. If you're in an urban area, I'd assume ridesharing services would use lights out parking garages when they're overcapacity. A car sits idle 95% of the time. That's why GM invested in Lyft. They see a future where there's a need for drastically fewer vehicles to service mobility needs. Yes, yes, rush hour handwaving. You use economic incentives to solve that.
- Tloewald 11y ago
  Self-driving cars don't need to park at a destination. They just find the next rider. Privately owned self-driving cars can drive themselves to a carpark that's arbitrarily inconvenient to get to (which will greatly increase congestion, so let's hope that self-driving cars turn out to mainly be used as taxis).
fma 11y ago
General Motors just invested $500 million in Lyft, and will partner to provide vehicles today and autonomous vehicle technology as it develops in the future. GM has already committed to autonomous cars in the past, but it got more real when they threw half a billions dollars in the ring and partnered with Lyft.
frik 11y ago
Driver-less cars will take off at sunny locations like California, Nevada, etc. But it will take longer for other weather conditions you will find in winter at other locations - a combination of snow/rain and evening sun rays are a showstopper for current LIDAR and camera based systems.

pbreit 11y ago

VCs don't really do $5b rounds. I'm curious where Lyft investors Founders Fund and A16Z think its gonna go.

jmckib 11y ago

Where are you getting all of these discounts? I've used Lyft ~80 times this year, and I've never seen a coupon that isn't just for first-time riders.

hiharryhere 11y ago
I stopped using lyft after moving from SF to Manhattan where yellow cabs are cheap and plentiful. Since I stopped using lyft regularly I've received loads of "50% off for your next 10 rides" style offers. I think they are designed to reactivate previously frequent users.
- jmckib 11y ago
  Thanks, looks like I'll be switching back to Uber for a little bit.
rhino369 11y ago
I got some deal with take five rides and get 50 dollar credit (5 dollars per ride). I'm in DC. I took them up on it. It's pretty much the same experience as uber. I don't see the same sort of network effects that keep something like Facebook as a monopoly. I think we'll have several companies in this market in 20 years.
tedmiston 11y ago
Maybe you ride so much that you're outside of the segments they're trying to incentivize. I've used it five times in the past year, and they sent me a half dozen emails in October through December: > Take two more 5-star rides by 12/1/15 to get $50, good for $5 off your next 10 rides!
dawhizkid 11y ago
http://imgur.com/mHNm6ai http://imgur.com/mHNm6ai

TeMPOraL 11y ago

> Uber seems to only give a first trip incentive Maybe in the markets they've already established themselves in. Here in Poland, they're basically throwing money at people. Every other week I hear that there's ~$7 worth promo code to be found somewhere. Or that they'll deliver you ice creams. Or donuts to work. Or something.

tedmiston 11y ago
If it's like the U.S., only the first promo code you use on your account gets honored for most of them. And the Uber Ice Cream, etc. they charge a decent amount for -- It was $20 for 5 ice cream bars in Ohio last time they ran it.

ErikVandeWater 11y ago

I'm not sure I agree that VC's not investing in Lyft is a bad sign for Lyft's long-term success. Those who have invested in Lyft recently make good sense as investors. Carl Icahn isn't exactly dumb money, and can probably add a unique perspective. GM makes sense because it is a very good long-term partner: Autonomous vehicles will be a big part of the future, and when that time comes, Lyft will have a highly-qualified partner to bring a fleet to market.

viscanti 11y ago
The point isn't that they've never had VCs or 'smart money' (we could debate Carl Icahn's smartness for tech), it's that their latest round of $750M didn't have any. They have GM and a Saudi prince making up the entire round. Neither of those likely meet even a liberal definition of 'smart money'.

argonaut 11y ago

> I think it's telling that they didn't have any traditional investors in their most recent round. No, it's not telling at all. If you're trying to raise $500M, you don't have many choices. You're looking at 1) IPO, 2) private equity, 3) strategic investors. IPO has obvious problems. The fact that Lyft chose strategic investors doesn't say much. I'm sure there were tons of Asian private equity funds clamoring to invest.

viscanti 11y ago
> If you're trying to raise $500M, you don't have many choices. Every other unicorn in the world suggests otherwise. This is the first large round by either GM or the Saudi prince. The Saudi prince isn't even a strategic investor, he's just a guy with a deep bank account. VCs and Private Equity Firms have been incredibly active in later stage rounds for Unicorns. Late state rounds almost never have a single investor. That's true for Lyft this round. It's telling that they couldn't find any of the more traditional investors to invest (even for a part of the $250M they weren't able to sell).
- argonaut 11y ago
  No, all the unicorns get their funding from the same options I just outlined. The Saudi prince invests through his private equity sovereign wealth fund. Also wrong on the single investor. Firstly, we don't know that GM was the only investor in the round. It is common not to name all the investors. For example, in Uber's recent private equity round, Baidu was the investor, and other investors, if any, were not announced.