
Lyft Plus - francoislagier
http://get.lyft.com/plus/
======
joosters
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?

~~~
brk
Honestly, I don't care. I'm pretty much auto-ignoring any "request an invite"
bullshit these days.

Launch your product, or don't. But I'm not clamoring for an "invite".

When it's actually for-real, then it's easy to compare the price/service
ratio.

~~~
icelancer
This is the ultimate form of Lean Theory bullshit. It's parasitic and
ridiculous.

~~~
alex_doom
It's not just Lean Theory/MVP blah blah. Microsoft has done this for years.
Splashy PR announcement of a hot-shit new thing they cooked up in R&D. Then a
year later, closed down.

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dchuk
"We started by reimagining ridesharing."

I've always viewed Lyft as Uber X with a pink furry mustache. What exactly
have they "reinvented" before this announcement that wasn't already
"reinvented" by Uber before them?

~~~
tibbon
Uber started at the top and then did Uber X to go down in pricing.

Lyft started at the bottom and now goes up.

My biggest problem with _all_ of these services is that there aren't enough
drivers (at least in Boston), and I can rarely actually find one on any
service when I need it. And it seems a large % of the drivers are actually
chilling at home, waiting for a ride (which is fine), but sometimes don't
"move" on the map for 10-15 minutes from the time they accept the ride. It
will appear they are a 5 minute drive away, but that becomes a much longer
wait.

~~~
jacalata
I've noticed that too, it's infuriating. And with Uber and cabs, they all mark
themselves as having 'arrived' some 2-5 minutes before they pull up - it's
like, dude, I can see you on the map as six blocks away, how the hell do you
get away with this?

~~~
eridius
With Uber, marking themselves as "arrived" does nothing but notify the
passenger. I asked one driver about it and he says he does that a few blocks
away because he doesn't want the text to be delayed.

The actual paid portion of the ride doesn't start until you enter the vehicle
and the driver taps the Start Trip button.

You can also verify the entire trip later on your receipt. It shows the entire
trip on a map, plus the start and end times, so you can verify that it matches
your expectations.

~~~
jacalata
Huh. I find it annoying because I'm usually watching for the car once I get
the text and so extra time after being told "I'm here!" feels longer (it's
like having a recorded announcement break into the hold music on a phone
call), but also I think because I had assumed that they were getting somehow
tracked on how long it took them to get to the pickup and they were gaming it
by making the signal less useful to me. I know it's not increasing my trip
length, thanks!

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nostromo
I'm curious about the economics. I presume they're buying the SUVs?

By getting into the game of managing a fleet of vehicles, I imagine their
margins will look more like a cab company's and less like a software
company's.

It's as curious as if Airbnb started buying up hotels and their associated
inventory risk.

~~~
hammock
Uber has been maintaining fleets for a long time. Don't have a source off the
top of my head but I know from talking to lots of drivers here in Chicago that
they regularly take their top-rated drivers and offer them a (company-owned or
leased) SUV or town car to drive as a part of Uber Black.

~~~
dsl
There are companies that get a contract rate with Uber to say, have X cars on
the road 24/7\. They in turn hire enough drivers to keep the cars moving all
the time.

I'm fascinated by how logistics work, so I was asking my Uber driver a bunch
of questions. He explained the above to me and said he was referred over to
one of these companies because he didn't (or couldn't) buy his own car at the
time.

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jjcm
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.

~~~
jackowayed
It's worth pointing out that the chocolate pictured is $8+ for a 2oz bar.

It's small-batch, handmade in the nice part of the Mission with carefully-
sourced beans. Basically as San Francisco as it gets.

Seems like the cost would add up, but I guess they hope most riders won't
partake.

[http://www.dandelionchocolate.com/](http://www.dandelionchocolate.com/)

~~~
abalone
Notice they didn't exactly say the amenities would be free.

Actually, charging for concessions (conveniently via the app) might be a very
interesting business model. At the very least it might allow them to subsidize
their base price, which is super-important given the price war with Uber
that's going on right now.

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acchow
Are they really giving out $8 bars of chocolate with the ride?

[http://www.dandelionchocolate.com/store/products/mantuano-
ve...](http://www.dandelionchocolate.com/store/products/mantuano-
venezuela-70/#anchor)

~~~
dabeeeenster
They probably cost $3 for trade...

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massysett
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.

~~~
calbear81
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.

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w0ts0n
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.

~~~
kaiku
They recently rolled out a "log in with phone number" feature, so there's no
need to have a Facebook account anymore as far as I can tell.

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obilgic
That video was 15 seconds ...

~~~
badusername
lol yea it was pretty pointless. I definitely regretted clicking on it.

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asanwal
I used to work at Kozmo.com during the dot com gold rush. And I remember our
escalating battle with UrbanFetch.

Economics went out the window as it was all about customer acquisition and
beating and coming up with better deals for customers. Ultimately, the only
person who made money from our ridiculousness were bike messengers and other
service providers (real estate brokers)

A lot of what I'm seeing with Uber & Lyft reminds me of that time. Some of my
observations on it here - [http://4044walnut.com/uber-verus-lyft-kozmo-
urbanfetch/](http://4044walnut.com/uber-verus-lyft-kozmo-urbanfetch/)

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lawncheer
I am from St. Louis where there is currently a restraining order due to
conflicts with the local taxi union. My understanding was that Lyft had the
argument of "we arent a real taxi service since the amount paid is optional,
and its peer to peer", which is why they felt they could launch in markets
that let taxi commissions monopolize a market. Doesn't this just turn that
gray area into black and white?

~~~
tptacek
In many cities, the black-car market is regulated differently from taxis, and
if Lyft Plus fits the definition of a black-car service that might sidestep
the regulatory concerns.

~~~
lawncheer
Stolen from another comment [http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/8/5694720/lyft-
goes-after-ube...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/8/5694720/lyft-goes-after-
ubers-black-cars-with-new-high-end-rides)

Looks like they are selling the cars to the drivers. It's like NYC's medallion
program, but weirder.

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izzydata
Why do so many new sites use this exact style of website? It's like it is so
supposed to be new, modern and minimalist, but it is getting old already.

~~~
nemothekid
I'm not sure its supposed to be "new, modern and minimalist", just responsive.

Almost all of Lyfts customers have only ever interacted with Lyft via mobile.

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ajaymehta
Fascinating that Lyft seems to be owning and administering the actual vehicles
with Plus (custom Ford Explorers). To my knowledge, none of these services do
that yet.

~~~
dpim
According to the Verge article, they are selling them to drivers, with
priority to current Lyft drivers by seniority and activity

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kirbyk
Wow, that video told me nothing.

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anmol
For anyone from Lyft-- you need a loyalty program for all of us that spend
hundreds of $s a month :)

~~~
theutan
It would seem that you are being pretty loyal without one ;).

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moonka
Interesting. Guess it was only a matter of time with the proliferation of ride
share platforms. I wonder if drivers are employees or contractors? Seems as
though the cars will be more uniform than Uber Black/SUV.

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lotp
This looks desperate, Lyft is just grabbing for ways to stay relevant. I don't
see how they ever raise enough to actually compete after giving away nearly
40% of their company on that last round.

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sulliwan
Is this satire or is this an actual company? I honestly can't tell. This could
very well be viral marketing for Silicon Valley.

~~~
taternuts
I was 100% sure this was a joke until clicking into the comments

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ansible
So, other than the mobile phone app, is there any difference between this and
the other limo services out there?

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bluthru
For some reason the "watch the video" button isn't displaying in Chrome but it
is in Safari.

~~~
saym
You didn't miss much, the webpage is more informative than the video.

Youtube link if you feel so inclined:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVPy-2tqIn4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVPy-2tqIn4)

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mikeryan
Is this just a straight livery service?

~~~
nairteashop
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...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/8/5694720/lyft-goes-after-ubers-black-
cars-with-new-high-end-rides)

"[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 oldest and most active, Lyft
says; how much they'll pay for that privilege, the company won't say."

~~~
vinceguidry
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?

~~~
aetherson
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.

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rsync
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.

~~~
bpicolo
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

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nodata
Why are all the comments here treating this as a serious product? It's satire!
The car has a moustache! They used the words "ford" and "luxury" in the same
sentence! They have a photo of dandelion chocolate!

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caffinatedmonk
If this drove itself that would be amazing.

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theon144
Okay, I have no idea whatsoever what the site is trying to tell me or sell me,
what do they offer, and if this is a joke or not. Anybody care to enlighten
me?

