Ready to shell out the big bucks
If you’ve got an important business meeting or a hot date this weekend, you don’t want to show up in a dented old beater. But if you’re using a ridesharing service to get around, you don’t get to choose the style and condition of vehicle that picks you up – that is, unless you are willing to pay more.
This Wednesday, Lyft announced that they will now offer a “more stylish” (and more expensive) option. When you book a ride with Lyft Premier, you’ll be picked up by a driver in a high-end luxury vehicle, such a car from the BMW 5 Series, an Audi A6, a Lexus ES, or a Cadillac Escalade. The service is currently available in the Bay Area, in Los Angeles, and in New York.
An obvious move to catch up to Uber
Lyft Premier, at $2.66 per mile, is much more expensive than Lyft’s regular service, which runs at $1.16 per mile. However, using Lyft Premier will ensure that your ride is clean, stylish, and luxurious. Hello, leather interior. The company is also enticing first-time premier users with a coupon that cuts the cost by 20 percent.
The move was at least partially a response to a customer survey in which 60 percent of Lyft users said that they’d like the option of a luxury vehicle. But Lyft Premier is also an obvious answer to UberLux, which has been around for a couple of years and also offers limousine rides. Lyft has no choice but to match Uber move for move in order to compete.
Services like Lyft Premier make sense in today’s economy, where many cash-strapped millennials are tapping into the sharing economy, and are renting rather than buying, but still crave high-end experiences.
Who are these luxury drivers?
One can’t help but wonder who out there is working for Lyft that can afford to buy a luxury vehicle? It’s certainly not CEOs playing cabbie just for fun. Perhaps trust funders whose parents gave them a fancy car, but still need to earn some petty cash?
Although Lyft is doing all it can to catch up, Uber, valued at $68 billion, is still outshining Lyft.
