I guessed this would happen in a previous comment. Lyft being second fiddle in the ride sharing business has allowed them to take advantage of all of Uber's accumulating missteps. Partnering with GM and now Google it seems that this will be like android. Waymo provides self driving car software . Lyft is like a cell phone carrier providing logistics and the network, and GM provides cars (hardware) which would be like Samsung.<p>[1]<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14321265" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14321265</a>
Waymo will have the first self driving cars on the road.<p>They are so ahead of everyone.<p>I think everyone including regular car companies buy the tech from Waymo in the short term.
With how much Google had previously invested in Uber, without the Waymo lawsuit it's safe to say this deal would have been struck with Uber instead. Has nottt been a good few months for Uber, and Lyft has really taken advantage.
When I use lyft now, I'm coming across drivers that only drive for lyft. The tide has definitely shifted against Uber. I'm not really sure there's a way back at this point. The one advantage Uber had was network effect, but in my experience that has diminished. Lyfts come just as fast as Ubers now because they have enough drivers on the road to support the response time. I'll never go back to Uber.
This could be a longer term death blow for Lyft, ironically. If Google has the self driving tech, the car & car partnerships, the money, maps, access to end consumers, what exactly does it need Lyft for? Lyft will be a vehicle for Google to kickstart and test this out with a current ride sharing network before Lyft is cut off ...
Here's the thing. The end game is that Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers are out of a job as chauffeur.<p>However, the self-driving cars remain a capital expense that someone has to finance. I couldn't Google up numbers easily, but it looks like the number of ride-hailed vehicles is in the multiple millions in the US. 1,000,000 autonomous cars at $50,000 each is a $50 Billion-per-million capital expense. I'd guess that the capital is out there, but would it be that raising and deploying that much capital takes as long as developing the autonomous technology? Globally, why wouldn't this be a $1 Trillion spend? Can Uber and Lyft pull that off?
Uber and Lyft are pretty much the exact same thing in markets where both are available. hell, they even have the same set of drivers as many drivers sign on to both. I think time will prove that Lyft was quite undervalued compared to Uber, especially as autonomous vehicles hit the market.
this will most likely amount to nothing or very little, waymo is also launching their own competing service at some point and lyft has other suppliers for cars (GM/Cruise), this will most likely be a stop gap and used as a a good headliner grab for both companies, just look at what happened to the short lived Lyft/Didi/Grab partnership that went up in smoke
I feel like Lyft is the underdog coming back to strike the killer blow to Uber... The year Uber has had I wouldn't be surprised to see them disappear altogether by 2018/2019. Lyft seems to be doing things a lot better, but helps that their CEO isn't out starting fires instead of putting them out.
That is just rubbing salt in the self inflicted wounds.<p>I think that this could probably be the first real danger for Uber, especially if their self driving cars effort is killed.<p>The major costs in taxi operation are fuel and humans. Electricity solves the first, self driving second.<p>And they can even escape regulation if they present themselves as ultra short term rent a car service.
Undoubtedly the market for ride sharing built with autonomous vehicles will afford for multiple winners -- but this certainly looks like a strong contender for the first.
What do you see as the build vs buy preference here? Are you better off being Uber and investing billions in self-driving technology (assuming an ideal world with no lawsuits or misconduct), vs Lyft partnering for the same features? Frankly, I don't see the advantage of a software and logistics company going off on a robotics and AI track. Self-driving will take decades but eventually will become commodity technology.
Since GM owns a bit of Lyft equity, is it not weird that Lyft is doing this? Maybe this is a sign that Cruise is quite far behind, and the best Lyft can do to prepare for the future (whether with Waymo or GM) is to use Waymo tech?<p>People are also speculating that Alphabet might buy Lyft, but it's not clear that Alphabet wants to be the first party involved in hiring contractors for cars. (I understand these are autonomous cars, but will they really be transitioning that soon?)
Aww. Their LIDAR unit looks like a tiny sombrero<p><a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/12/13/technology/how-self-driving-cars-work-1481671863640/how-self-driving-cars-work-1481671863640-master495.png" rel="nofollow">https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/12/13/technology/how-se...</a>
It would appear that Lyft is making some strong ties with Google as of late. Between this and the announcement of the Lyft partnership with IBM and Google to work on some sort of Kubernetes router mesh [1] I am starting to see a trend.<p>"We are excited to announce that we are working in partnership with both Google and IBM to bring Envoy to Kubernetes. Fun fact: there are now more people working on Envoy at Google than there are at Lyft! We have a lot of other things planned with Google that we will be able to share more about in the coming months."<p>[1] <a href="https://eng.lyft.com/envoy-7-months-later-41986c2fd443" rel="nofollow">https://eng.lyft.com/envoy-7-months-later-41986c2fd443</a>
If Alphabet really wants to mess with Uber, why don't they just buy Lyft and offer lower ride pricing/higher driver pay for as long as it takes to put Uber out of business?
Honest question: why there is no reverse type bidding system for picking a ride?<p>Let me tell you when im going and where to, where i am and what time i need to be there. Then you have x amount of hours/minutes to bid. The lowest bid gives me ride, unless i want to click few more checkboxes like [x] verified rider [x] minimum 4.5 star rider, etc.
Biggest open question: what is the long term value of Lyft to Waymo?<p>To me, this seems like a way for waymo to pilot autonomous technology for customers with low initial investment, but I don't see the long term value that Lyft provides once testing is complete.
What would be the benefit for consumer if lyft/uber switch to driverless cars? Are we going to see a huge price drop or just a bump for these companies profits?
This will be huge for Waymo and the Lyft killer or the other way around depending on whether self-driving technology becomes a monopoly or a commodity.
Didn't Lyft also do basically the same thing in China? I feel like Lyft is a living testament to collaboration being a better business strategy than domination