Lyft's Future: Autonomous Vehicles and Driver Partnerships

Lyft prioritizes customer obsession by enhancing service and exploring partnerships for future growth.

### Lyft's Vision for the Future: Customer Focus, Autonomous Vehicles, and Regulatory Challenges
* 🚗 Since starting eight months ago, the focus has been on **"customer obsession,"** providing exceptional service to riders and drivers alike, which has led to **record performance metrics**.
* 📈 Lyft is currently picking up riders faster than ever, boasting more drivers on the platform, with a **12-point preference over competitors**, enhancing the overall experience.
* 🕒 The average commute in urban areas like San Francisco consists of **half-hour rides** during weekdays, showcasing the **time savings for riders** who no longer need to drive themselves.
* 💵 The introduction of "**price shock**" allows commuters to **lock in prices**, eliminating surge pricing, which has attracted approximately **200,000 users** to the price-like pass.
* 🤖 In terms of autonomous vehicles, Lyft is looking to partner with companies like Mobileye to expand its offerings, envisioning a **hybrid future where both human-driven and autonomous rides coexist**.
* 🔄 Lyft aims to leverage partnerships to enhance its service, such as the recent collaboration with DoorDash, allowing users to **save on both platforms**, thus **improving customer experience**.
* 📝 The company is also focused on advocating for federal regulations that recognize the **unique status of drivers**, who neither fit the **full-time employee** nor **independent contractor** categories.
* 🌐 Overall, Lyft's strategy involves **navigating regulatory landscapes** and **building partnerships** to ensure a **safer and more efficient future** for transportation.

Well. So I've been in the job about eight months and I've been, I think, laser focused since day one. Customer obsession. Customer obsession. Every time I come, I mean. David, Come on. Yeah. So fair. It means we want to provide a level of service that is above and beyond anything you have any reason to expect. And right now, we're picking riders up faster than we have ever before. We have more drivers than the platform ever had before. Drivers prefer us 12 points over the other guy, which is fantastic. So the other guy's name, I'm not going to talk about those guys. I don't even know who you're talking about. Really. I just I got a little confused there. But anyway, the point being that the better you do for your riders, the better you for your drivers, the more people respond. And that's why we've got all the records that you're saying. Just very quick and detail.

It matters when it comes to consumer behaviors. Psychology. My research understanding is that Lyft is very much in the commuter space right now, urban areas. San Francisco is one example where we are. Yeah, tell me more about that. Sure. So about right Monday to Friday, about half-hour rides or commute rides, which is enormous. Just think of the time people are saving, not having to drive themselves and so forth. We introduced something called price shock a while back, which allows people to lock in a price, get rid of surge pricing, which, you know, I'm no fan of. Neither is anybody else. And that's had a great effect on commute because commute people take the same ride every day, but they don't like to see the price bounce around. So it's been a huge success. We've got about 200,000 people who've got a price-like pass right now, keeps growing. Autonomous vehicles.

Yeah. Okay. I want to have a really honest conversation about this. As you know, it's something that I work on every single day. Our colleagues at Bloomberg Intelligence, our research arms say that you face disintermediation risk because you're small. You announced a partnership with Mobileye, which is a maker of sensors and system in a chip. Mm hmm. I don't see it. I don't understand how that gets you to market with offering autonomous rides on your platform. Yeah, sure. Love the question. So first, I think APIs are going to be a huge accelerator. Actually, I say to them, expand your addressable market, expand for Lyft, because I think what it's going to do is it's going to bring new product onto the platform that people are going to like. Some people are going to like being driven by human. Some people are going to think being driven by robot is pretty cool. Some use cases favor one or the other.

So anyway, I think the hybrid future is what we're looking at over time now. Mobileye, they make the sensors, they make the tech you probably have in your car right now: lane assist, smart cruise control, all that stuff. That's level two. Level four is full self-driving. So imagine a world where mobile AI tech, which might show up in a Honda or a GM or a Ford or Stellantis or a Volvo or whatever. Imagine that you could push a button saying, You know what? Push this button and your car is now available on the Lyft platform to pick people up and pick them up wherever they are, whatever. So it's a way to sort of, you know, today, if you want to drive for Lyft, that means you're using your time and your car. Tomorrow, maybe you just use your car. We're getting somewhere now because what you're describing is very similar to Elon Musk's vision for the Tesla.

proprietary app. Yeah, if you're a Tesla owner, you can submit your vehicle to the fleet, and when you're not using it, it works more like Airbnb than any other platform. But again, it's very hard for people to see the jump there. I'll let you answer. But, you know, Uber and Waymo, for example, is very tangible. You can summon a Waymo in those future markets next year, Austin and Atlanta. Yeah. Where are we? Right. I got well, so look. So we're doing both, right? So we just signed an agreement with main mobility, which also does full self-driving in Atlanta, and that'll be available next year. So that's fantastic. So that means if you want to have that experience, by the way, we've given 130,000 rides in Las Vegas with a prior partner as well. So we've got some on-the-ground stuff going on, which is great. And I think it's really important.

But I also think the future where a lot of us individuals, people who drive today, people anyway, anyone who has a car, if it's a self-driving car, should also be able to be put on the live platform. By the way, I would extend that to Tesla as well. I don't use the word proprietary. I think that's right. There's no particular reason why, as a Tesla owner, you wouldn't want to necessarily participate on the Lyft platform too. So that's kind of the future. We're trying to build Jordans. I mean, the stock's still up 29%. And so I guess the market believes this vision of the future. Yeah. Any evidence that Waymo in San Francisco is taking market share from yourselves and Uber? So we look at Waymo much more as a potential partner than a competitor. Look, if you're a Waymo, you want to be, and it's not your partner, they're Uber's partner.

Oh, but they'll be both I over time. I'm not making a prediction. Exactly. I'm simply saying if you're in the business of creating very expensive assets like self-driving cars, you want them utilized, you want them on the road, and the way you put them on the road is you don't just do it yourself. You end up partnering with a couple of other people who've got that demand built in which we do. We do 2 million rides a day as it is. So I think if you're one of those companies, your whole job is to get the tech reliable, safe, inexpensive, and then commercialize it in a bunch of different ways. And we want to be one of the best partners for them we can be. David, I have a question about New York City. Since I'm here. I saw an ad somewhere online yesterday that said Uber Driver. Make $35 an hour per online hour, which

I thought it was kind of cheap because I know that Uber and Lyft are locking drivers out of the platform for some part of the day that they can't possibly calculate or know. So they end up spending hours at their job in which they don't make money. How much longer are you going to be doing that to drivers and why? Yeah, so it's frustrating as hell. We do not want to do this. Drivers don't like it. We don't like it. What's going on first? I don't know about that $35 an hour. Actually, I think the number that I know from New York is more like 40 an hour engaged. But anyway, they've got their numbers. We've got ours. But the drivers we've followed around are making more like $15 an hour. Right. Because they end up being in their car and locked out of the platform for a considerable portion of the day. Totally super, super frustrating. It's not something that we want to do.

It's something we feel like we're forced to do because of a particular regulatory framework that only exists in New York City, doesn't exist in New York State, doesn't exist in the rest of the country, and in the rest of the country. Even in New York State, we've done all sorts of work to make sure that drivers never get locked out of the platform. But there's this peculiarity around New York and how the regulations are written that are putting, you know, both the other guys and us in this terrible position of having to sometimes turn drivers supply down just to meet what's called utilization requirement. So believe me, we're talking to the regulators. We don't like it, and I don't think it actually is good for anyone. I think it's an unintended consequence of a well-intentioned idea of let's make drivers make more. And I think it's just having the opposite effect lifts, doing more. I think about some of the partnerships.

We had the DoorDash CFO on the show this past week. It's an example. But again, you and I have had this conversation, let's say a dozen times now. What's the next thing for Lyft, the new business lines, for example? Like some people find it really interesting, whether you sell more of your data to the EMS, it's a really interesting case study. Well, I mean, let me talk about partnerships in general. So you know where our focus is rideshare, right? That's what we focus on. So when you focus, you can do great work, which means you can have more riders, more drivers, better experience, better service. But it also means if you want to really meet your customers where they are, you need a partner, right? So we just announced a partnership with DoorDash, as you say. I think if it is to great taste to go great together, I think it's a little

Reese's peanut butter thing. Maybe it doesn't land in the UK. But anyway, in the U.S. space, when we've been here long enough, you've been here long enough. You kind of know it. So you've drank the Kool-Aid, you've eaten right in the cup. But anyway, the point is, you can save up both as a Dashpass user, you can save on Lyft, as Lyft, you can save on Dashpass. So that's a great, you know, type of partnership we've already announced, and I encourage you to link your accounts. So but anyway, we'll do more and more of that. So as we provide incredible transportation service, get you out to the world, connect with other people, we want to work with other partners who can make the experience even bigger. David President elect Trump. Yeah. What's left's plan for the next administration and what the world looks

like? Well, I don't know exactly what the world looks like, but I can tell you this. Look, we work at the federal level with, you know, with all of the administrations over the last ten years. Right. And our big focus at the federal level actually gets back to my next question. How can we have sort of federal level legislation that actually helps us recognize that drivers are they're not full-time employees? Frankly, it doesn't exactly feel like an independent contractor either. Fully. It feels like a blend of both. And how can we find a national strategy that kind of gives them benefits and so forth? That's what we're focused on at the national level. We also do a ton of work at the state level. On the local level here in San Francisco. We met with the mayor a couple of months ago. We shall be the mayor in the future, a future person. But anyway, about how can we bring more

life to San Francisco? Just really quick, Elon Musk on Tesla's last earnings call said that in the scenario of a Department of Governor Efficiency, he'd use that platform to work towards federal level regulation of autonomous cars. Do you support that idea and what do you want to see happen? Absolutely support it. Of course. You know, a lot of work has to be done to come up with smart regulation there. But the reason we support it is simple. It's not super fun to have 50 different states to work with 50 different regulations. Nobody likes it. You got to test the things. And so for a certain point, though, you need to take a stance, you know, at the country level, you know, I don't know. I look, I think autonomous vehicles are going to be safer. They know the laws. They follow the laws that if they've got eight eyes to are two. So, you know, they're going to be safer.

But it's going to be one of the things we're going to have to step in at step by step so that, you know, frankly, it works for all of humanity, not just for the robots.

Lyft CEO on Price Lock, Earnings, Robots, Regulation

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Bloomberg Technology

Lyft's Focus on Customer Service and Growth

Lyft has been prioritizing customer obsession, resulting in faster rider pickups and an increase in drivers.

The company's success in the commuter space, particularly in urban areas like San Francisco, is driven by offering price stability and eliminating surge pricing.

Lyft's partnership with Mobileye and the use of APIs are seen as potential accelerators for expanding their service offerings, including autonomous rides.

Mobileye's technology is driving the transition from level two to level four self-driving cars.

The future may see personal vehicles being used for ride-sharing through platforms like Lyft, similar to Elon Musk's vision for Tesla.

Lyft is actively pursuing this model and has already provided 130,000 rides in Las Vegas, while also partnering with Main Mobility for full self-driving services in Atlanta next year.

Uber's Driver Challenges in New York City

Uber is partnering with others to maximize the utilization of self-driving cars, aiming to commercialize the technology in various ways.

The company is facing criticism for locking drivers out of the platform, leading to frustration and low earnings for many drivers.

This issue is driven by unique regulatory frameworks in New York City, and Uber is working with regulators to address the problem and improve driver conditions.

Lyft is focusing on rideshare as its core business while seeking partnerships to enhance customer experience.

The company has announced a partnership with DoorDash, offering mutual savings for Dashpass and Lyft users.

Lyft is also working on federal and state-level legislation to provide benefits for drivers, recognizing their unique employment status.

Supporting Federal Regulation of Autonomous Cars

Elon Musk advocates for a federal level regulation of autonomous cars to avoid the complications of working with 50 different state regulations.

The goal is to create smart regulations that ensure the safety of autonomous vehicles, which are expected to follow laws more reliably than humans.

The approach to regulation will be gradual, aiming to benefit all of humanity, not just the technology.