[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...

"[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.

[jamesaguilar]

Agreed. It seems like the "right" thing to do if you're running a personal taxi service is to buy a reliable used car in the high tens of thousands of miles, and then drive it until it dies. Buying a new car -- you'd have to make thousands of dollars more per year to justify the depreciation.

[nairteashop]

I was wondering the same thing, but I'm sure they ran the numbers and gauged driver interest before launch. Quite curious to see how it turns out.