
Lyft Takes over Ford GoBike - mikhuang
https://www.lyft.com/bikes/bay-wheels
======
vajaya
I wonder why bike sharing is still a thing in business world. Hasn't this
business venture been proved to be a fiasco in China, where user base is
larger in magnitude, operation cost is residual and virtually no regulation
friction, compared to the u.s.? Why do lyft, uber and others think it is
viable(profitable) in the u.s.?

Another thing beyond me is although the business model/development of this
kind seems to be bound to fail, why they are still chased by enormous amount
of capital.

My cynical suspicion is these so call tech start ups are just instrument of a
grand new ponzi scheme in which a bunch of investors use borrowed money(from
banks, insurance company and the likes) to set up a start up and increase the
value of it(manufacture hype to justify the inflation along the way) and the
sell to public, which is mainly pension funds, 401k, government backed
institutions and so one, that is, ordinary folks.

I hope someone would correct me and shed some light on this matter.

~~~
woodruffw
My 0.02c as a Citi Bike (NYC's bikeshare) subscriber: I wouldn't be surprised
if there's a _modest_ profit to be made in bike sharing, at least in NYC. I
know quite a few people with a yearly subscription (either personally or via
their employer), and I would consider paying for one personally now that I've
experienced their convenience. I don't know how much money Citi Bike/Motivate
actually makes here, although AFAIK they don't receive any public subsidies
(other than free use of public space).

OTOH, I don't think that the e-bike/scooter companies will ever be profitable.
I wouldn't be surprised if the people running those companies are equally
cynical.

~~~
vajaya
I don't have their unit economy data, but I'm still (stubbornly) skeptical of
the profitability of bike sharing. One reason is the market depth, in the
sense that most of the time it's just young, educated and often bourgeois
people in metropolis, which is a tiny proportion of people, who ride bike for
purposes other than recreational.

~~~
woodruffw
Yeah, I don't expect bike sharing to ever be profitable outside of (major)
city centers. Maybe that's a good thing -- once we get over this stupid fad of
monetizing basic improvements to urban life, we'll be able to buy the
equipment for pennies on the dollar and run it as a public service ;)

FWIW, I think your analysis (young, educated, bourgeois) is spot on, and that
bikeshare companies are completely aware. Check out this map of Citi Bike's
availability:

[https://member.citibikenyc.com/map/](https://member.citibikenyc.com/map/)

If you're not familiar with NYC: it's only available in business,
wealthly/middle-class, and rapidly gentrifying areas. To continue my baseless
speculation: it wouldn't surprise me if Citi Bike's (hypothetical)
profitability relied on only serving these populations. Reprehensible, and
another reason to agitate for bike shares as an extension of public transport.

~~~
jonas21
I'm guessing the "young, educated, bourgeois" demographic is the early adopter
of most new technologies. If you wrote off everything that was primarily used
by that demographic in its early days, you'd have missed out on the personal
computer, mobile phones, digital photography, and many other things that are
widespread today.

~~~
woodruffw
> If you wrote off everything that was primarily used by that demographic in
> its early days, you'd have missed out on the personal computer, mobile
> phones, digital photography, and many other things that are widespread
> today.

Not writing off! I'm in that demographic. But let's call a spade a spade.

That being said, I think there's a _substantial_ difference between
PCs/cellphones/digital photography and bikesharing: the former were _also_
adopted as business interests, while the latter is _just_ a luxury or
employment perk. PCs and cellphones reshaped the office, digital cameras
reshaped newstelling and photojournalism; I find it hard to believe that
bikesharing-qua-private-service will be doing much reshaping.

~~~
nakkijono
One issue with commuting using public transport to a large tech campus is
traveling to meetings and lunch places during the day. You can walk 10-15
minutes or use the company shuttle, which takes +20 minutes to be in another
building on time. If you came by car, you can drive 2-5 minutes and spend 1-5
minutes parking. With bike, it's 5 minutes door to door. Providing e-bikes for
in-campus travel would do some reshaping, as it can reduce need for parking
space and would allow for more efficient use of time.

Not as big as cellphones obviously. Still something.

People who travel to client sites in dense urban environments may have even
more interesting numbers.

~~~
ghaff
Is walking 10-15 minutes (especially in a generally nice climate) really a big
issue? I hear scooters and bikes mentioned a lot for those cases where people
might need to travel a mile. Most of the time, I'd consider having to walk a
mile or so to get from Point A to Point B a feature rather than a bug.
Certainly I had to regularly walk that sort of distance around college
campuses and never considered it a particularly big deal--and I didn't attend
schools in nice weather locations.

------
diebeforei485
After Lyft/GoBike removed all their electric bikes, SFMTA decided to expand
dockless bikeshare so people can continue to commute by bikeshare.

But Lyft decided to sue instead:
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/7/18657312/lyft-bike-
share-l...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/7/18657312/lyft-bike-share-
lawsuit-san-francisco-dockless-docked-transportation)

~~~
pensketch
You're painting Lyft to be the bad guys because they're suing. It seems like
SFMTA is trying to weasel out of a contract. Lyft isn't trying to prevent
people from continuing to commute by bikeshare; they're trying to secure their
ROI on their Motivate acquisition through the exclusivity contract with SF.

Have you read the contract terms in the article you're linking to? SFMTA is
saying the contract was for 'docked bikes only' while Lyft is saying it was
for a Bike Sharing Program, which could include docked or dockless bikes. Lyft
does a good job describing what 'Bike sharing' is in that document so it will
be up to the courts to decide if they're right.

-

 _“Bike sharing” is a public biking system concept that allows customers to
rent a bike on a short-term basis from one section of a city and leave it in
another section of the city that same day._

-

 _The Term Sheet provided, among other terms, that Motivate was to be the
exclusive operator of any bike share system in the Participating Cities for at
least ten (10) years._

 _The Term Sheet provided (emphasis added): “During the Term of this
Agreement, Motivate shall have the exclusive right to operate a bike sharing
program that utilizes public property and public right of way anywhere within
San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, San Jose and Emeryville.”_

~~~
Larrikin
What if I don't care whether Lyft gets their ROI and just want the best bike
share possible?

~~~
untog
An exclusivity agreement might result in the best bike share possible. I don't
want to pick up one company's bike and struggle to find a dock for that same
company when it comes time for dropoff. Either one company gets exclusivity,
or you end up with a huge amount of public space given over to redundant
infrastructure.

~~~
gbear605
Or you mandate a docking system that works for all the bike companies.
Commoditize the docks using public action and then the free market can
actually be free to solve the rest.

~~~
ViViDboarder
There ought to be a solution somewhere in this line. This alone won’t solve it
as a company could flood the docks and block out competition that way.

Having multiple companies running taxis or P2P ride apps doesn’t matter so
much as users as you can still hail a cab the same way and many P2P drivers
use both Lyft and Uber, creating a good user experience.

However, that’s not true for these types of bike/scooter shares. The density
of bikes/scooters is not so high that I’ll be able to pick just one app and
have no problem finding transportation. And, if it was, we’d be tripping over
them left and right.

Even interoperability between apps would be enough to solve this.

------
alpb
I was in SF this week and had a chance to try this out. They have 0 (zero)
e-bikes despite their app has a column to list the count.

They also force you to pick up the bike from designated racks and drop-off at
designated racks which is a pain in the ass.

On the other hand JUMP has a fully e-bike fleet, but bikes were impossible to
come by. I parked a JUMP bike that had full battery. An hour later I came back
and the app didn’t let me unlock it (reason unknown to me). It seemed like
things are really glitchy.

I found the entire bikeshare situation in SF to be miserable, in brief.
Scooters are no different.

It’s funny to see that Seattle were like this 4 years ago. Now LIME and JUMP
dominate Seattle with fleets entirely consisting of E-bikes. They are super
ubiquitous, and there’s no shortage of them, no “glitches”, and no need to
park them at a designated rack.

~~~
holy_city
>They also force you to pick up the bike from designated racks and drop-off at
designated racks which is a pain in the ass.

I mean it's pain in the ass when I have to move the crap from the front steps
of my building or out of the driveway because people aren't courteous their
dockless transport widgets. I'm alright walking a little ways to dock a
bike/scooter as a user, but I'm firmly against any company or city that lets
users dump crap on the streets without penalties. It's littering.

~~~
alpb
Believe it or not, this doesn't happen in Seattle. Sure there was a month or
two when people were treating bikes like shit, because they were new, but now
the conventions have been established and people are more respectful. What
you're worried about happens rarely in Seattle.

Assuming you live in SF, I'm not sure why you're not worried more about the
people peeing on your wall, tossing their shoes or random garbage on your
driveway more. Bikes being dropped off at a public sidewalk sounds like less
of a problem than these.

~~~
holy_city
I'm in Los Angeles where we have Lime scooters all over the place. It's not
rare, it's been a daily occurrence.

I can care about more than one thing at a time. Human refuse in my streets is
a problem I deal with, and so is dockless transit.

------
tectonic
My wife and I use Ford GoBike every day and are quite happy with it. It's
probably the reason we still don't have a car.

------
robotburrito
Why doesn't the city just run it's own scooter/bike share? Seems like it would
exist in the same domain as things like MUNI and in theory would allow the
city to make a profit instead of LYFT/UBER etc.

~~~
streblo
Because they can let Uber/Lyft/et al do it, charge them a tax, and have none
of the operational overhead or expenditures.

------
iso1337
I like these commute options that make it easier to get around but starting at
$2/ride seems a bit high. If I were to use this twice daily for 200 days a
year, I'd be looking at $800/year! I'd rather buy a bike in that case, and
just use the bikeshare for one offs.

I've never used a GoBike, but are those prices real & what are the typical
usage patterns?

Edit: I see, there are monthly and yearly plans that make it much more
competitive with ownership. Great!

~~~
samfisher83
You can get monthly membership and it's free to take trips.

~~~
superseeplus
Citibike in NYC (also operated by Lyft) costs $2 per ride for using an ebike.
And that is if you are already a member. Non members pay $5. There is no
membership allowing unlimited ebike usage.

~~~
shereadsthenews
In SF for whatever reason there is no surcharge for the electric bikes

------
bredren
I remember Lyft partnered with Ford on self-driving, but does that have
anything to do with Lyft choosing to take this over? Bike shares seems outside
the core-competency of Lyft. Is it simply for marketing?

I'm confused why the company would take this on as part of some larger
strategic plan.

~~~
sparky_z
"Go-bikes" were never run by Ford. It was a start-up called Motivate[0] that
licensed the Ford brand for their bikeshare service. Lyft bought Motivate last
year, and is just now getting around to the rebrand.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivate_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivate_\(company\))

~~~
throwaway287391
Thanks for pointing that out -- I had no idea and it's really surprising to
me. Why did they license the Ford brand? Is the Ford name really that
attractive to the Bay Area bikesharing market? Would've expected it would hurt
more than help, if anything. Is it just: all brand recognition is good brand
recognition?

~~~
stingrae
I think Ford paid to have it put there (as advertising). In NYC it is Citi
Bike share as advertising for CitiBank.

~~~
throwaway287391
Oops, that makes a lot more sense. Thank you.

------
badusername
Ford GoBike have to be some of the worst, most ill-maintained bikes in the
city. The product quality is terrible compared to the competition - half the
bikes have mechanical issues, the electrical bikes were hazardous.

I was an early subscriber given how cheap it was, but I often struggled to
find a bike that worked.

------
truebosko
I pay $50 CAD a year for bike share across Toronto. This seems pretty
expensive, to be honest.

~~~
EForEndeavour
How are you paying $50/year? Bike Share Toronto costs CAD$100/year. If you
took advantage of their Presto card discount, that used to be 50% off _for the
first year_ of membership, recently reduced to 30% off the first year:
[https://bikesharetoronto.com/presto/](https://bikesharetoronto.com/presto/)

Bike Share Toronto is heavily subsidized by the city and Ontario, and operates
at a loss: [https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2019/02/28/bike-
share...](https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2019/02/28/bike-share-
toronto-gets-75-million-expansion-despite-operating-losses.html)

------
ravenstine
That is until Lyft gets bored with it and axes it like Lime did to their
bikes. Now my town is vacant if any rental bikes, despite their promise of
fixing our "last-mile" problem to our train station.

~~~
bsder
> That is until Lyft gets bored with it and axes it like Lime did to their
> bikes.

These seem to be be "docked". Wasn't Lime's problem that they were "dockless"
and wound up being trash everywhere?

~~~
baby
I can't read this seriously knowing that cars take 1000000x more space

~~~
bsder
It doesn't matter how little space they take up when you have to step over
them every morning ...

My comment was that I thought that Lime stopped because they couldn't make the
dockless work because the bikes wound up as trash everywhere. Your comment
brings nothing to that discussion.

I have no problem with these services taking up a parking space every block or
two in order to put in a dock.

~~~
baby
if you could park them on the road it wouldn't take space on the sidewalk. I
do not want these docks, nobody using scooters or bikes want these docks.

------
microdrum
Another nail in the coffin of Bird?

~~~
stephencoyner
I don't think so. On average, bike share trips are much longer than scooter
trips (~1-3 for bikes vs ~0-1 for scooters) and e-bike trips are even further.
With this in mind, I think it makes more sense to see scooter competition as
walking than bikes or e-bikes.

Can't find the source I read this in originally, but will keep looking.

------
ghoji
A bike share being owned and operated by one of the biggest threats to cyclist
safety is, well, it’s something.

~~~
jameslevy
I would guess from my own experience as a frequent ride hailing passenger that
Lyft/Uber drivers are less of a threat to cyclist safety on average than
regular drivers.

~~~
technotony
The increased risk is passenger's opening the door right as you bike past or
jumping out at a stop light or something. with cabs you know the risk so raise
your awareness but with ridesharing could be anycar as you normally can't tell
from the rear whose ridesharing.

~~~
deathanatos
A good heuristic is that they're parked illegally in the bike lane.

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joering2
I recently read that Uber/Lyft keeps even 75% of money for themselves. I
wonder if there is an opportunity for third large ride-sharing app where
business model would be based on bidding and company would keep much lower
fee, just to cover overhead. So you want to go from point A to B, all local
drivers are contacted and they have 45 seconds to bid who would charge less.
Requester would see how much sorted by less $ and also ratings so he/she can
chose someone more expensive but with better ratings.

Such model would kill Uber/Lyft overnight - they would not be able to adjust
to that model because then their stocks would be cut down 95%. However, it is
a win-to-win situation to both drivers and ride-takers - drivers get paid more
and more stays in their pocket, while takers can chose if the ride is
affordable, and at over 50% cheaper than what Lyft/Uber charge, it sure would
be!

~~~
thehappypm
You're getting downvoted because this is both a bad business idea, and a bad
product idea.

Uber and Lyft have proven that drivers and riders don't want to think
particularly hard. They want a magic button that either a) makes a car show up
or b) feeds them customers.

As for the business side, there's no good reason to think that this would even
cut costs on Uber's side -- they still need to maintain all of their lobbying
costs, their server and engineer costs to maintain the bidding app, their
marketing costs, etc.

