[andrewmunsell]

I'm a periodic Uber user and tend to use it later when public transit isn't running. This would be interesting, and if cheap enough, could be more convenient than waiting for a bus if you're in an area where they don't run frequently and it's storming, extremely hot, you don't want to wait around.

I also just tried out Car2Go which costed me ~$15. The same trip from Uber, albiet at a different time of day, costs $9-12, and I get a driver. If Uber's pricing is even lower due to car sharing, then services like ZipCar and Car2Go may be in a little trouble.

Of course, I realize if you're going to pick something up from a hardware store or whatever you may not want to use Uber, but for many types of trips using a service like Uber or Lyft is better and more convenient than driving yourself

[RandallBrown]

In Seattle, a car2go trip that costs $15 would be 36 minutes long. Car2Go has no mileage fee for trips under 150 miles.

The same UberX trip would be $13 before taking mileage into account. If it took you 36 minutes, I assume you went at least 3 miles. So that makes the trip cost at least 17 bucks.

I've found that Car2Go is quite a bit cheaper than using either Lyft or UberX. I usually use them together though. I'll take a Car2Go to the bar, then take a rideshare home after drinking too much to drive.

[kisielk]

Car2go also has a $14.99 / hour maximum, so you could potentially drive it a lot more and for multiple stops. No way you could hire an UberX to drive you around the city for an hour for that price.

[ZoF]

Doesn't Car2Go require you to bring the car back to it's starting point?

Are there multiple locations you can drop the car at, and if not, how do you handle that when taking it to the bar?

[zyxley]

You're thinking of Zipcar.

With Car2Go, you leave the car in any legal on-street parking space (sometimes limited to 15 min+/1 hr+/2 hr+ depending on city) in the "home area" (borders depend on the city but are typically pretty expansive). The company contracts with each city to basically pay a flat rate for street and metered parking for all the cars yearly.

[koenigdavidmj]

No, you can leave it nearly anywhere in the service area. The particular rules are up to the city you're in; in Seattle they amount to "you can park anywhere, provided it allows a normal car to park for at least two hours, and doesn't become illegal to park during certain times (e.g. bus lanes)".

[michaelt]

I gather from their website the car may be returned to "any non-restricted curb side parking throughout the car2go Home Area"

How extensive the home area is depends heavily on the city. In Los Angeles, it looks like a tiny sliver of the city [1] whereas in Berlin the coverage looks a lot better [2] (although it's possible I'm being confused by different map zoom levels)

[1] https://www.car2go.com/en/losangeles/ [2] https://www.car2go.com/en/berlin/

[jcomis]

Car2go can be parked at any street legal parking spot with 2+ hr limits. There are no restrictions really.

[downandout]

Are Uber users this price conscious though? I think their core user base skews to a higher net worth, and aren't going to be the kinds of people that want to share a car with another person. The only thing they'll know about the person they are sharing with going in is that they are too cheap to take their own Uber ride.

This just doesn't sound like it will work with their core user base. Maybe they are trying to expand their user base to the public transportation crowd, but that may devalue the brand.

[slykat]

With the pivot of UberX yes. Previously Uber had a luxury brand position, all of their products (UberX, Black Car, SUV) were priced higher than a taxi, and the bulk of their revenue was coming from black car services. I remember the old advertising and they never had the concept of a "sale" or messaging about their pricing relative to the competition.

However the rise of Lyft and other competitors essentially pushed Uber to go into a price gauging war. They went into a big price cut with UberX that essentially made them cheaper than both Lyft & taxis, and had a lot of advertising campaigns talking about their price advantage. This happened late last year (I believe) and since then both Lyft & Uber have been going through a series of price cuts & driver promotions to compete on both side of the table.

So yes, Uber users are definitely price conscious. This has happened largely because Uber has shifted its model more towards UberX. Slashing fares was a pretty bold move (companies rarely cannibalize cash cows with high margins).

The new focus, I think is to consolidate their position by growing aggressively, competing with Lyft on pricing & driver promotions, and ultimately, drive the cost of service so low that they expand the market past on-demand limos (Uber before X), cabs (Uber now), to a service cheaper than owning a car (Uber in the future).

[superuser2]

Users of Uber proper might be high net worth, but UberX is popular with (among others) college students, because it's a bit cheaper than taking a cab and you don't need to carry cash.

[cblock811]

Agreed. I used to drive for Lyft when UberX started up. They did get a good pull of the college and young 20's market with their service in SF.

I just think of brand differentiation with these companies now, not really the price point.

[joelgrus]

I am starting a new job soon about 3 miles from my apartment, which is a little too far to walk. (I can walk that far, but I don't really want an hour-each-way commute.)

One thing I've been considering is using Uber / Lyft, but it's a lot of money over the course of a year. At 40% cheaper it looks a lot more attractive, though. And sharing a car with another rider isn't any worse than sharing it with the driver! :)

[mdorazio]

Is there a reason you don't want to just bike? Seems like the perfect distance for it, and it's free after the initial investment of a couple hundred dollars.

[harlanlewis]

What's the saying? A car runs on money and makes you fat, a bike runs on fat and saves you money.

Depending on that 3 mile commute (hills, traffic, bike routes), it may also be faster.

[eli]

simply not a practical option for everyone. I only do it because I can bikeshare one way home. After biking a few miles in DC in the summer I need a shower and complete change of clothes.

Also, before they put the bike lanes in biking during rush hour felt stressful and dangerous.

[Poiesis]

I hear you; a lot of people feel the same way (I'm lucky enough to be able to shower at each end; if I don't bike commute it's usually more laziness).

That said, a lot of people seem to sweat less on bikes with an electric assist; people worried about sweat might look into those as an alternative.

[joelgrus]

I very much do want to bike, but my family (and some of my bike-commuting friends) seem to think I'll get hit by a truck and are very against the idea. :P

[peatmoss]

Depending where you live, there may be resources to help you get started. 3 miles is a perfect biking distance. Bike-commuting friends don't want you biking? Is there something particularly bad about your surrounding environment?

[icebraining]

(...) the initial investment of a couple hundred dollars

And learning to ride it :)

[dajohnson89]

The driver has an incentive to be nice. Your fellow rider doesn't.

[fred_durst]

You really don't think Uber will be asking riders to rate their fellow passenger right after the ride? And then start displaying it to potential riders to help them decide if they want to take the share?

[austinl]

I typically bike to work, but I'll take an Uber every once in a while for about $7-$9. Sometimes I use MUNI, which is $2. If Uber can drop the price range to $3-$5, I'd consider using them almost every day -- the difference in price between taking the train and carpooling at that point seems negligible. I think there are a lot of people in a similar position.

[jdross]

They don't want to be a brand for the wealthy. They want to be known and perceived as a utility for everyone. So if anything, this helps fix the brand issues they have.

I spend north of $300 per month on uber, and I'm selling my car because I never touch it anymore. That changed recently as prices kept dropping.

[vinceguidry]

My guess is that there are large numbers of people who would use Uber to get to/from drinking establishments regularly but don't because it's just a tad too expensive to catch two rides a night, several times a week. If Uber could cut the price down somewhat, they could open up a potentially huge market.

[dnautics]

different markets are different; that may be the case in SF; the core user base in SD skews to "Doesn't want a DUI", and we get a LOT of students during the school year, for example, although their ability to manage money may be suspect.

[billmalarky]

I became an uber user because it became cost comparable to taxi's. The uber experience is significantly better than NYC cabs and now that it will be cheaper it really is no contest anymore.

[Dewie]

> The only thing they'll know about the person they are sharing with going in is that they are too cheap to take their own Uber ride.

Oh the horror.

I don't know if higher net-worth necessarily means that there aren't a good amount of those that are mindful of their spending (or cheap).

[cpwright]

In the Millionaire next Door (or maybe it was the Millionaire Mind), it was pointed out that a common way of becoming a high net worth individual isn't to make an obscenely huge amount of money; but rather to be careful about how you spend the money that you do make. A lot of high net worth individuals own their own business, and make a good income, but are also frugal enough that they are able to build up wealth rather than make the money and immediately spend it.

[mikeash]

This got me thinking: why are short-term rental services so expensive? Surely the driver makes up a large chunk of the cost of a service like Uber, so renting the car alone should be much cheaper.

My guess is that rental services need a considerable oversupply of vehicles to make up for the uneven nature of demand. If I'm going to use such a service, I need to be reasonably certain that I can get a car within walking distance, and that means they need enough cars within a fairly small area to handle the 95th percentile of demand (or whatever percentile is appropriate).

With something like Uber, the supply is effectively shared within the metro area, so sudden demand in one small area doesn't hurt. If the nearest Uber car is a five-minute drive away, that's fine. If the nearest ZipCar vehicle is a five-minute drive away, you are probably not using ZipCar today.

I think this brings us back to the continuing discussion of self-driving cars....

[andrewmunsell]

I find that to be completely true-- the area around my office is completely void of Car2Go cars from around 4 PM later. I had to walk ~1/5 of a mile to get to the nearest one. Of course, I'm sure at 1 AM that you'd be able to find a parked car pretty close to you, provided you're not by a bunch of offices which have had the cars driven away to residential areas by people at their jobs.

[qeorge]

I had to walk ~1/5 of a mile to get to the nearest one.

Which is what, a 4 minute walk? That seems pretty minimal to me.

[ZoF]

I'm honestly wondering if that's a typo.

In what way is ~1250 feet considered a far distance to go for a rental car? Even in a populous metro area that seems about as short a walk as I would expect, are they generally closer?

[andrewmunsell]

It's not a typo, but it is 90 degrees today, and I'm sure many people would prefer to be able to be either picked up or go around a corner to find a car.

[electrum]

Put another way, that is two city blocks, which is a very reasonable distance to walk after finding parking in any major city.

[chatmasta]

ZipCar is $7-10 per hour on the low end of prices. Compared to Uber, that's extremely cheap.

[andrewmunsell]

That is if you're planning on being the car for an hour, and depending on the service, whether you're starting and ending near a parking spot. As in my example, if you're going to a hardware store and need a full sized car, ZipCar would be much better than Uber or even Car2Go because it's so cheap per hour.

[mikeash]

ZipCar requires you to drop the car where you picked it up, right? So that $7-10/hour includes the time you spend on whatever non-driving activity you get up to at the destination.

[thaumasiotes]

Yes, as of 2012 when I could have used such a service. $10 / hour is a fine price for short-term car rental... but since I wanted to use the car to go places, as opposed to just driving around in the parking lot, it worked out to more like $50-100 per hour (of driving).

Bicycle rentals don't work like that -- you get on a bike at one stand and leave it at the stand closest to where you want to end up. I don't know why the car model is so badly broken.

[zyxley]

Take a look at Car2Go, which has nominal rates a little higher than Zipcar, but pricing that scales down to minutes and is based around a "leave the car wherever" model.

[superuser2]

Bicycles cost ~50x less but can be rented at similar rates. Also it's relatively easy for a bike-sharing company to redistribute bicycles on a truck if the supply bunches up somewhere.

An hour of Divvy is surprisingly close in cost to an hour of ZipCar, which is astonishing considering how much more it must cost to operate ZipCar.

[akgerber]

Bikesharing is designed to encourage short trips within its service zone— even if you want a longer trip, you can just dock/undock a bike to avoid a fee (aka docksurfing). The escalating hourly fee is designed to keep the bikes in circulation, not as a charge you pay during ordinary usage— I've been a member of Citibike in NYC for over a year, and have never paid a fee beyond the membership.

With Zipcar, you first pay a membership nearly as expensive as bikesharing, then pay at least $10/hr.