This Week In Rideshare: Lyft Verification, Tesla Robotaxis and Lyft Bikes.
Lyft verifies in Chicago, Tesla goes Hollywood and bikes get dumped. LegalRideshare breaks it down.
LYFT ADDS RIDER VERIFICATION
Lyft adds rider verification in Chicago, but is it too late? Chicago Sun Times reported:
Ride-hailing company Lyft is piloting a rider verification program in Chicago to crack down on anonymous users and improve drivers’ safety — but critics say it’s too little, too late, coming three years after a peak of carjackings.
Rider verification is not mandatory, according to Lyft. Instead, verified riders will be marked with a blue check mark that will be seen by drivers before they accept a rider.
Nolberto Casas, a ride-hailing driver and spokesman for Chicago Gig Alliance, called the program “window dressing” and “too little, too late.”
Casas said Lyft’s pilot program “puts the onus on the driver. What it says is: We’re putting up this mediocre program but unverified riders can still get rides. And you accept them at your own risk. We don’t accept that.”
TESLA GOES HOLLYWOOD
Tesla goes Hollywood for its robotaxi reveal. The Verge reported:
Over the weekend, Bloomberg reported that Tesla was planning on using the film studio’s lot in Burbank, California, to reveal its next-generation robotaxi on October 10th. (The event was originally supposed to take place on August 8th but was pushed back after Musk ordered more work on the prototype.)
It was an interesting decision considering Tesla mostly likes to hold these types of events on its own turf. But as Bloomberg noted, the 110-acre lot contains over two dozen sound stages, including fake suburban towns that could be an ideal location to test a not-quite-ready-for-primetime autonomous vehicle.
Another glaring hole in Tesla’s approach to self-driving is legal liability. To date, the company has been unwilling to accept any liability for crashes involving the company’s driver-assistance features, Autopilot and Full Self-Driving. In fact, Musk even laughed off a question as to whether his company would accept legal liability for its self-driving vehicles in the future. “There’s a lot of people who assume we have legal liability,” Musk has said, “judging by the lawsuits.”
LYFT DUMPS BIKES
Lyft dumps some bikes. Bloomberg reported:
Lyft Inc. plans to sell some of its bike and scooter business and eliminate 1% of its employees as the ride-hailing company struggles to turn profitable.
Lyft, which operates bikesharing programs in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco and Minneapolis, issued ambitious three-year growth and profitability targets in June, signaling an effort to turn around its core ridesharing business that has struggled to gain share from rival Uber Technologies Inc. Shares of Lyft have been down 24% this year.
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