At least anecdotally, here in SF Lyft is almost always more expensive than Uber.
Fearfully, since their survival means going driverless and they are now losing $800 million a quarter, they will race to get driverless cars on the road, it will be rushed, and it could be reckless. I'm thinking the two driverless cars filmed blowing red lights in SF recently (at the very start of their SF driverless program), not to mention possibly many other traffic violations that no one happened to be filming. They are going to wrangle regulators and skirt laws to make it happen with urgency. They now have an advisor to Trump.
I'm just here watching the rushing of driverless cars onto the road by Uber so that their company doesn't collapse. We'll see what happens.
There are plenty of times of year where I'd be wary trusting a human driver from the bay area in a Minneapolis snow storm much less a computer designed by them. I can see how it would be easy not being able to imagine difficult road conditions when you spend your whole life in a place where the worst weather is a tiny bit of rain.
Multiple instances of running red lights right when they start testing? To me that says driverless cars are decades away and some people are so optimistic that they aren't going to see it before there are several tragedies and driverless cars are legislated away.
There are lots of very common driving mistakes that are orders of magnitude more common than stopping for a red light.
Quick calculation: Lets think about people who drive their whole lives, not city folks. Lets think about work hours driving as it's likely to be the most by quantity, and vacation or pleasure driving should be roughly equivalent.
30 minutes each average way 5 days a week starting at 16, so by 40 they've driven 5/7365 = 260hrs / year. 260 24 years = 6240 hours.
8 Hours a day, 5 days a week, with salaried level vacations is 2000 hours a year. Many drivers are likely to work way more than that. Anyway, 6240 / 2000 = 3.12 years. That means that if you started driving at 18, you'd have the same hours driving as a 40 year old.
This also means that by the gladwell definition of 10,000 hours, you don't become an expert driver till 54.5 years.
However a pro driver becomes and expert after 5 YEARS of driving.
This also means that only 22% (those over 55) of america is likely to be an expert driver. http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html
If HN population is the same as americans (it's likely skewed older), then 78% of hacker news isn't a gladwellian "Expert".
So self driving cars don't need to be better than most people they need to be better than a group of people who are very likely to be experts.
1) Average driver drives ~13.5K miles/year (http://cars.lovetoknow.com/about-cars/how-many-miles-do-amer...) with an average speed of ~32 mph (http://www.ridetowork.org/transportation-fact-sheet). This translates into 420 hours/year. Or a person becoming an expert driver by the age of 40, if we accept the "10,000 hours rule"...
2) But the Gladwell's "10,000 hours rule" was proven wrong (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797614535810). For example, if we follow FAA that recently changed the rules to require 1500 hours for ATP (i.e. airline pilots) license, then you are talking about 3.5 years (for average driver) vs. 9 months (for taxi driver). Not that big of a difference.
This means that on average the US driver becomes an "expert" by the age of 21-22. This actually matches quite well with the insurance company rates that drop drastically at about this age.
The majority of car accidents are correlated with someone's fault, related to altered state, inexperience, distraction, or bad judgment. Some types of people are prone to accidents, others are less prone.
But in the self driving car world it's all equal - it's completely arbitrary who is a victim of an accident.
Someone who has never run a red light or had an accident in their life because they are an alert, careful, experienced, defensive driver suddenly has all that stripped from them and now they are driving at just an "above average" level.
Why should the good, consistent drivers be punished? (And they absolutely would if we settle for just "better than average"). I'm all for driverless cars, but only with patience; no one should even entertain mass adoption of self-driving cars without a minimum of multiple years of testing in live traffic with zero accidents or major traffic violations (by fault of self-driving car).
Seeing the traffic violations at the start of the SF program, we probably ought to expect the mass adoption minimum 5 years out, more likely 10-15.
And that, my friend, is a very good thing. We slowly raise the bar and eventually get rid of bad drivers - because in the future only people with a near perfect driving record will be granted a license.
I did say "much better than average" I agree that if "just above average" this would be a fail.
I wonder if the most advanced autonomous vehicles already have those sensors installed and how well the signals are integrated into the prediction and decision making processes.
Once they go driverless, they won't have to pay drivers anymore, but they will no longer have drivers renting them their car at a discounted rate.
Uber still has the most drivers and the cheapest prices.
Even if I were entirely selfish it wouldn't be in my interests for them to be stressed and rushing to cram in as many jobs as they can.
This is why I don't get why Uber tries to "undercut competitors". Even if they succeed, the second it stops bleeding money and raises prices competition will reappear. It's not like it is hard to install another app.
People spend money on that sort of thing.
That aside, getting drivers is half the battle; even choosing on a selfish basis (and I choose ride-share services on a selfish basis) - if you have more drivers, I have to wait less. For a while, in my area, lyft consistently had more drivers and got there quicker, while uber was consistently cheaper; when I was in a hurry, I'd use lyft.
(my perception is that this has changed and that lyft no longer has that advantage in my area, but point being, if you can't get there in 5 minutes and your competitor can? I might be going with your competitor, even if it's more expensive.)
But Uber kept sending me drivers who were like 0.5 miles away or more, in SOMA at rush hour, and after the second time I waited ten minutes and then the driver canceled, I decided I was willing to pay a small surcharge to get a drive in less than 5 minutes and for it to, you know, actually happen.
I should probably try out Uber again to see if they've resolved their problems with driver supply. This was SOMA (5th & Bryant) at like 5:15-6:00pm, several times over the course of a month.
The cancellation fee only kicks in after 5 minutes.
For one thing, Lyft takes less of a cut and passes more to the driver.
More than one driver I'ved talked to complained that Uber was in the habit of delaying earned payments to drivers. Some complained that Uber was in the habit of under-paying and making drivers spend time to fight for money they've already earned. They do not seem to have similar experiences from Lyft.
In general, all else being equal (and the products are pretty close to equal), I'll prefer siding with the working stiff than multi-billion dollar multinationals.
Also the app is much nicer. The Uber app drives me crazy.
Specifically, Lyft can only deactivate drivers for cause, and it has a clear appeals process through binding arbitration, for which Lyft foots the bill.
I'm not fond of clauses that require arbitration or which prohibit class action suits, but at least Lyft allows for and pays the costs of that arbitration.
I've mostly been taking Uber recently due to their low prices. However, last month Lyft had a Line promotion and I got to take about 60 rides. The vast majority of the drivers were clearly fired Uber drivers and the experience was way worse. Dirty cars, unable to follow navigation, bad driving, no English, and one driver was just a straight up weirdo. They are clearly passing anyone at the in person interview now. And they all had high ratings of 4.7-4.9. I've had similar bad experiences on Uber but they are much less frequent and the drivers were almost always rated 4.3-4.6.
In the world of venture-capital subsidized transportation, no one ever pays full price [1].
[1] Can Uber Ever Deliver? Part Two: Understanding Uber’s Uncompetitive Costs - http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/can-uber-ever-deliver...
Also see Part 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13079023 / http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver...
1. being able to scale supply to meet demand.
In the traditional taxi model, the number of taxis and drivers are mostly fixed. during times of low demand more fixed costs brings more waste (cars driving around not making money) and in times of high demand represent lost profit (cars not capturing market potential).
taxi company's can try and scale 'fixed costs' better, but then they basically just become uber. Having drivers use their daily driving cars as taxi cars allows scaling of supply much much easier than having to use purpose built taxi cars.
They also updated their own phone app to provide all the functionality of the upstarts, but with local staff to deal with problems.
Edit: http://www.taxiwars.org/electronic-taxi-dispatch-v1.0/
Cost is not the only factor. In fact, it's not even that important in terms of why Uber is trouncing taxis in terms of ridership. Uber has some very important UX advantages -- much lower wait times, integrated payment, fewer no-shows, ratings, less scummy drivers that people -- are willing to pay a premium for. Price is not the only variable in whether Uber can compete, your first link forgets that. UX is much more important IMO in terms of how shitty cabs are compared to Ubers.
Even only in regards to price, can uber compete on costs? your first link misses the bigger picture. Traditional taxi companies and Uber are efficient at different niches.
Traditional taxi companies (yellow cabs) are best at higher density areas due to being limited by the need for close-by depot, and 'base load' rides due to having a fixed supply of cars and not being able to dispatch new drivers as quickly.
Uber-models are good for all densities, and particularly areas with wide fluctuations in demand.
Taxis will need to adopt many Uber strategies in order to compete. They already have begun as you said. Taxi cabs sucked. Still do. And I would have no issue paying a premium to Uber to fuck it to the taxi cab companies. Especially when we are talking 10% difference in costs. UX dominates in terms of which ill choose to ride with.
Uber models are not going away, even if your first article thinks they will be slightly more expensive in certain scenarios and thus not able to compete at all, lol. What a leap in logic.
That said, will Uber be the long-term company that dominates? Maybe not. But their model will be.
I would have been happy had they just notified me first instead of my bank. Terrible UX to be frank. I actually got in contact with Lyft support on Twitter, but they did not care and just claimed that it was "standard policy".
At least they inform you in most hotels. I have not used Lyft - I would hope they do the same.
Any tips would be appreciated of course.
Truly reliable and useful public transit is a luxury in the United States that isn't available to a huge majority of the country.
Walking also isn't an option for many people due to safety, health reasons, scheduling, childcare needs, and not to mention just too much stuff to carry.
Uber isn't a cash venture, and several activities in the US require either a credit card upon which temporary authorizations can be placed, or a full (and sometimes, over-)payment on a debit card, the difference being that the debit card isn't backed by a line of credit that becomes due in at least 20 days, but rather it is spent directly out of a checking account.
You need this for:
- gas stations
- hotel stays
- car rentals
- sit-down restaurants or bars
The SV/HN is out of touch argument doesn't fly here. Rather, there is a wide gulf in the spending ability and access to services between a US credit card owner therefore a participant in the mainstream banking system, vs. someone with only a checking account, vs. a person who can't qualify for either and conducts their affairs with cash. This is a problem much older and much more foundational than the Bay Area vs. everyone else and the techies and non-techies divide, and is a significant delineation between the US middle class and lower class.
Is ride-sharing that big of a cost for your day to day?
Most gas pumps authorize $100. Use a credit card.
With a credit card your maximum liability for fraudulent charges is $50 even if you don't timely report a stolen card or suspect transaction; $0 if you do. For debit cards, it's unlimited.
So, for example, somebody could fraudulently use your debit card number to buy a stick of gum, hoping the charge goes unnoticed. Then, 60 days later, they drain your entire bank account, and possibly other linked accounts if you have automatic overdraft protection. If you failed to notify the bank for the gum purchase, your entire life savings is lost. Even if the bank account is only used for small purchases and only maintains a small balance, it can still create huge headaches.
Debit cards are for ATMs, and preferably ATMs inside bank buildings. Credit cards are for transactions everywhere else.
For similar reasons, you should be careful who you write checks to--because similar rules that govern debit card transactions also govern ACH transactions. And if you can help it, don't link a checking account on which you draw checks and make other payments to any of your other accounts; or at least, don't then enable automatic overdraft protection.
I do not see what the issue is with having a $25 hold? It's not a charge.
I'm still building credit (no history), which is why I'm not using a credit card. I believe holds only take place with debit cards.
Sorry, I assumed you used a credit card.
If you got a $25 authorization hold from Lyft there's a couple possibilities that come to mind. The first is that Lyft thought your ride would in fact come somewhere close to $25 (after tip). The second is that if you're a new customer, they likely consider you a much higher risk of fraud, and therefore want to err generously on the side of overshooting the estimate, instead of trying to place a lower hold and risk not being able to capture the real cost of the ride. Also, if you hailed your ride without providing a destination, they wouldn't have been able to produce a usable estimate.
Interestingly, I use Uber semi-regularly, and they don't hold anything. They probably only did it for the first ride.
But for Uber apart of China [3], Uber is winning and all VCs will make it that way anyway. Uber is the clear winner and they will continue to pool cash to the winner until it breaks all competitors. And then it will rise its prices and start piles of cash.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-04/u-s-outpu...
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-10/non-opec-...
[3] http://qz.com/746930/the-battle-between-uber-and-its-fierces...
If Uber ever tries to raise prices too high competitors wil swarm into the market.
Also with Uber investing on autonomous cars and how they are the only one with real tests with several cars on the road, this is going to be a huge barrier of entry. Even more when we see how the best tech giants like Apple and Google are struggling to develop one.
IMO no. Others mention the network effect, and while it will certainly be a factor, I don't think it will be anywhere near strong enough to make the monopoly plan work.
The network effect for Uber is really local - at the city level. An "Uber, but only in Austin" service can easily compete with a national-level Uber, since the vast majority of cab rides are taken within a user's home city.
You need a critical mass of cars/drivers to present real competition in this space, but you don't need to do it at national, or even state-level scale. A small upstart that can achieve critical mass in a single city can present real threat to Uber in that city.
The network effect of cabs between cities is so little that while a lot of consolidation of cab companies have occurred in each city, until Uber there was never a major cross-city network. I'm not convinced that a unified worldwide fleet has a significant competitive advantage. It'd be useful for tourists, maybe.
And this is already happening - Juno here in NYC is gaining real traction by charging drivers less, getting drivers to evangelize to each other. Uber won't be toppled by Lyft or any other megalithic ride hailing company, it will more likely be toppled by hundreds of smaller, geographically narrow companies.
How do you compete with that? You'd be burning money to compete, and Uber would just wait it out until you're bankrupt.
If you launch a global competitor that gains traction, Uber would just lower prices worldwide. If they can sustain a billion dollar loss every quarter, then you're quickly going out of business, and once that happens, they'd raise prices again and return to be profitable.
Not really. Uber customers only pay 41% of the cost of their rides. The rest is subsidized by Uber's investors. This is what allows them to compete with (read: severely undercut) taxi companies.
Local ridesharing won't have this massive advantage.
So they're even shittier and greedier than I thought.
Really? I took three trips this weekend, price checked both apps, and Lyft was consistently cheaper. There is definitely a price war going on.
The short term problem is that they can't burn through money long enough for it to work. The barrier to entry to create an Uber or Lyft competitor is very low - anybody with a car and a laptop can create a viable Uber competitor. Nobody's doing it because Uber, Lyft, and taxis are everywhere, but when there's only Uber, and they're suddenly expensive, they'll get disrupted just like taxis did.
The long term problem is that even if they succeed, purposely creating a monopoly and then raising prices is illegal. It's a great way to get in even more trouble with the government.
> anybody with a car and a laptop can create a viable Uber competitor
Source: was principal server engineer for flywheel, an Uber competitor.
"competitor" is a little generous considering their site barely makes page 1 of Google.
But we were plenty successful in creating a system in which people who wanted to get a ride were able to hail our drivers and our drivers could come and pick up the passengers and they could cancel and see ETAs and so forth. We served hundreds of thousands of rides while I was there, and presumably more in the two years since I left.