Lyft comes to Canada, sans-moustache

The ridesharing service Lyft, an Uber alternative, is coming to Toronto, building on its success in 300+ U.S. cities, providing 1 million rides a day.

"Lyft's marketing strategy, which is geared toward the young and technologically savvy, draws a relaxed and friendly demographic." Jessica Gelt, Los Angeles Times

As a brand, Lyft became known for the large pink furry moustaches drivers attached to the front of their cars. While memorable, the furry moustaches were eventually dropped, to overcome the resistance of some riders to arrive at destinations, such as business meetings, in a car with a giant moustache.

The replacement was nicknamed the "Glowstache" (a small, glowing plastic dashboard moustache). The latest Lyft iteration is a new color-changing dashboard indicator called "Amp."

Lyft is designed to encourage interaction between riders and drivers. When launched, Lyft riders were encouraged to sit in the front seat and fist bump with drivers upon meeting.

"You feel like you're in the car with a friend, and that's no mistake... Whether it's bringing someone a sandwich for the ride or letting them choose the music in the car, Lyft drivers have their own budding community growing." Drew Olanoff, TechCrunch

Music preferences are just one of the personal details that both passengers and drivers are encouraged to add to their profiles, facilitating conversation.

"Lyft is a real community—with both the drivers and riders being inherently social—making real friendships and saving money." Scott Weiss, Andreessen Horowitz (venture capital investor)

How it works:

• Riders must download the Lyft mobile app to their iOS or Android-based phone, sign up, enter a valid phone number, and enter a valid form of payment (either a credit card, or link to an Apple Pay, Google Wallet or PayPal account).
• Passengers can then request a ride from a nearby driver.
• Once confirmed, the app shows the driver's name, ratings by past passengers, and photos of the driver and car.
• At the end of the ride, the passenger is given the opportunity to provide a gratuity to the driver, billed to the rider's payment method.
• After a ride is completed, drivers and passengers are given the opportunity to rate each other on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. Any driver averaging a low rating by users is dropped from the service. Lyft does not allow passengers to know their rating.

The 5 year old transportation network company is based in San Francisco, California. Canada is Lyft's first international operation.

Related content
Lyft Launches Toronto Expansion on Tuesday - CTV
CITY Q&A: Timothy Houghton, head of Lyft Toronto, on what it’s like to take on Uber - Toronto Life
Lyft Launches in Toronto with SickKids Donation - Betakit
Lyft plans to operate more than 100 vehicles in Hamilton - CBC
Lyft is Coming to Canada - Huffington Post

More from IHateTaxis
Is Uber Doomed?
The Uber Tip Dilemma
Uber Provides the Taxi Industry a Good Kick in the Pants
Canadian Taxi Monopoly is Attempting to Curb Consumer Choice
Dear Canadian Taxi Monopoly: Your Uber Boogie Man Doesn't Scare Me
Taxi Truths Campaign Puts Lipstick on a Pig

Is Uber doomed?

Looks more like half a star...
Time Magazine Takes On Uber With
Brutal, One-Star Cover - SFist

We can imagine that the very thought will make taxi drivers everywhere do a little dance, but we hardly think ridesharing is going to disappear. Uber, though, that's a different story.

We won't bother to detail all the sordid details of what got Uber to this point -- just Google "Uber scandal" or "Uber crisis" to get the lowdown (if you've been living under a rock or something) -- but what has our attention is the kind of headlines we are seeing.

Intrigued? Take a look at the stories that are being generated:

My Uber Boycott Is Finally Paying Off - Gizmodo

I’d like to say that I’ve never given Uber money, but that wouldn’t be true. Not exactly. I did give Uber money once, years ago, when I had no other option. The company promptly ripped me off, and I wasn’t surprised. Why not? I worked in the same office as Uber in its early days. I could sense those fuckers were evil from the start. Now that the bricks of Uber’s multibillion-dollar edifice are officially tumbling down, exposing the company’s noxious and abusive inner workings, my boycott feels like it’s paying off. Obviously, it’s not actually paying off. I’m not making any money by avoiding Uber during the crumbling period of Silicon Valley’s once-beloved house of capitalism. Although I certainly saved a lot of money by boycotting Uber.) Uber’s fall is paying off in the form of what I’d call moral dividends. I spent years arguing with friends, not only pointing out that Uber seemed like a bad company run by bad people but also making the case that giving money to a company like that would only enable those bad people to do more bad things. I was not wrong... [read the rest of the story].

Strike four for Uber: Even with Kalanick’s departure, they may still end as the “Enron of the transportation industry" - Salon

CEO Travis Kalanick’s departure from Uber is not a surprise to those who have been following this company for the last several years. Since February, Uber has been rocked by one scandal after another... But this was hardly the beginning of Uber scandals. Previously, I and others had written about the Uber “parade of horribles” that has dogged this company from its inception. So while there’s no question Travis Kalanick scaled his company to a transportation behemoth, he has done this by promoting a pirate mentality and bro culture that has led to mismanagement in numerous ways. It was only a matter of time before he destroyed what he created. Today, only four out of 10 Americans say they have a favorable impression of the company... [read the rest of the story].

How one lone woman exposed the frat-boy culture at Uber - The Star

Amid the Lewis Carroll-esque madness at Uber Technologies Inc., a narrative that includes a suddenly leave-taking CEO ceding corporate leadership to a non-existent chief operating officer, a non-existent chief financial officer, a non-existent chief marketing officer and a seemingly mute chairman, one story stands out. Susan Fowler started working as an engineer at Uber in November 2015. After a brief period of time getting to know the various engineering work units, she settled on a team that seemed just the right fit. Here’s what she would later write about day one on the job:...[read the rest of the story].

Related stories
As Uber Leaders Step Aside, Arianna Huffington’s Influence Grows - NY Times
This is what Uber needs to do to save itself - Refinery 29
Uber wants its New York City-based passengers to know how sorry it is - Digital Trends
Lyft shares soar as Uber's awful year continues - NY Post
Estonia upstart Taxify wants to take on Uber - Voice of America


Related resources - from the IHateTaxis blog
Up, up and away with Uber in China
The Uber Tip Dilemma
I was scammed by an Uber driver
Why we shelved Uber updates

Up, up and away with Uber in China

Now you can call Uber to take a balloon ride over Shanghai

Uber in China is breaking any moulds it has created for itself elsewhere. Now 60 cities strong, Uber is stepping things up to compete with its biggest rival, Didi Chuxing.

Since being blocked from China's popular WeChat (an even bigger deal than Facebook here in the West), Uber has had to get creative. As "all in one" apps are how the market works in China, Uber has responded by reinventing its ride-hailing app to be so much more, including:

• UberLIFE - connecting users to nearby sporting and entertainment
• Uber + Travel - unique destination-specific transportation options
• UberPASS - multi-city ride pass
• Uber Boat - the next generation of boat-hailing (already in Istanbul)
• Uber Balloon - yup, you guessed it, hot air balloon rides!

This isn't the first time Uber has gotten creative (think the Uber service for helicopters in New York City). We doubt it will be the last.


Related resources
You Can Get Hot Air Balloon Rides Through Uber Now</> - Time
Uber positions its China app as more than a ride-hailing service - TechCrunch
Hey Uber, Welcome To China - TechCrunch
Uber provides the taxi industry a good kick in the pants - IHateTaxis
Shanghai Pudong International Airport Airport (PVG) transportation guide
Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport Airport (SHA) transportation guide
Get cooking on your layover: Asia

Uber Earth

creative commons image todpetkov on Flickr

Motherboard is running a whole week of posts on Uber, and the scope is pretty interesting. The week isn't over yet, but here are our picks so far:

• This Guy Quit His Engineer Job to Run a Blog All About Uber
• How Uber Is Changing Drug Dealing
• Get-Rich-on-Uber Ebooks Capture Drivers’ Hope and Desperation
• Uber Rape Case Leaves No Safe Transit Option for Women in Mexico City
• Uber's Conscientious Objectors

To view the full list of articles, and catch those still to come, check out Uber Earth.

Related resources
The Uber tip dilemma - IHateTaxis
Why we shelved Uber updates - IHateTaxis
Uber's year of unexpected partnerships - IHateTaxis
Uber provides the taxi industry a good kick in the pants - IHateTaxis

Why we shelved Uber updates

Did you know that there's a beer called Hacker?

An interesting thing happened on the way to this month's Uber news update post: Blogger got hacked.  Better said, Blogger posts about Uber got hacked. Something like that.

As there are a lot of Uber stories in the news each month, so about 6 months ago we gave up trying to stay on top of developments (not really our focus anyways), and switched to a monthly summary of the previous month's most notable news, posted on the 1st or 2nd of the month.

About a week ago, I began building the Uber news recap - March 2016, collecting stories, buiding links, and so on.

In the process, I was intrigued to learn the news about Uber's challenge to hackers, offering rich rewards to find bugs and issues in their software. Brilliant, I thought.

As I was gathering links on the best coverage of the initiative, I was dumbfounded to learn that Uber had backtracked, rolling back the amount of the rewards. Whaaatt?!? This was after the programming community had already started to work on the issues, racing each other to compete for the prize(s). Really, Uber? Are you really that stupid? Even I, a relatively non-techie observer on the sidelines was able to put 2 and 2 together: if you are a technology company, who are the last people you want to piss off? Hackers. And how could you make it worse? Draw your flaws to the attention of the hacker community, wave dollars in front of their eyes, then snap the purse shut. SNAP! I picture an alligator's jaws open wide, luring it's prey in, then snapping shut in a flash!

Stupid, stupid, STUPID!

All this while Uber is bleeding millions (or is it billions?) in Asia, chasing a market that's so far eluding it. Maybe Uber's resources would be better spent getting its house in order, maybe it should have honoured its offer to the hackers (jeez, ya think?!?!?).

So, it was with amusement last week that I discovered that my March Uber news recap - once written, with links to stories all about the lure and the misstep - wouldn't save properly. I got an error message, and my post preview looked weird. When I looked at the HTML for the post, I could clearly see it had been hacked. Or maybe there was a virus on Blogger designed to attack posts about Uber, or maybe this story. Whatever it was, the code was a huge, unfixable mess, with links garbled wherever Uber was mentioned. "Ah, and so it begins," I thought.

Hacking a blog website to mess up stories is, I'm sure, child's play to a hacker. But it sure makes me wonder what will, or could, come next for Uber, as it has made itself so vulnerable to its newly created enemies.

Editor: In the end, we decided that our news recaps weren't adding much value, so just decided to drop them, and devote our blogspace to other things, but thought we'd share our thinking, our experince and predictions. And, we're posting this story, sans links, to hopefully be less likely to be hacked.

Uber news recap - February 2016

Hot commodities on eBay

Now here's good news:

• DUIs down; impaired millennials taking Uber, Lyft
• Uber and Lyft Sign Official Agreements with CLT Airport

Who knew?

• People are paying big bucks for Uber decals and Lyft mustaches on eBay
• Uber passenger falls asleep in car, racks up $171 bill (Video)
• Goldman Sachs Employees Uber to Work More Than Anyone Else

Headlines and analysis

• Can grandma learn to use Uber?
• What Uber strategist David Plouffe wants you to know about ridesharing
• Why Clayton Christensen Is Wrong About Uber And Disruptive Innovation
• Can we build a humane alternative to Uber?
• Sears CEO cites Uber, Amazon in explaining Q4 loss

Uber in Canada

• Uber drivers, supporters march on Alberta's legislature demanding changes
• Vancouver's Board of Trade pushes for Uber
• More Toronto residents riding Uber: Poll
• Erb and Erb now offers insurance coverage for Uber drivers

Global news

• Uber launches its first motorcycle service: UberMOTO will begin as a pilot program in Bangkok
• Is Uber in Pakistan risky or convenient?
• Estonia Embraces Uber and Taxify As First European Country To Legalize And Regulate Ride-Sharing
• China’s Didi Kuaidi Is Raising $1 Billion More To Battle Uber
• Has Uber Finally Met its Match? It’s a race to the bottom for Uber and its biggest Chinese rival
• UberEATS, Uber's home delivery service, is coming to Australia
• Uber's in India to learn how to rule the rest of the world

Related resources
Dear Canadian Taxi Monopoly: your Uber Boogie Man doesn't scare me
Taxi Truths campaign puts lipstick on a pig
Canadian Taxi Monopoly is attempting to curb consumer choice
Uber provides the taxi industry a good kick in the pants

Uber news recap - January 2016

A California carsharing driver sports Lyft, Sidecar and Uber identities

Here are a few ridesharing news highlights that started our year:

Lyft is lifting

• Lyft defies predictions by continuing to grow as a rival to Uber
• Lyft Raises $1 Billion, Adds GM as Investor and Partner For Driverless Cars

Sidecar is side-lined

• Sidecar: ‘We failed because Uber is willing to win at any cost’
• GM buys Uber rival Sidecar, which shut down in December

Uber headlines and analysis

• Customers complain as Uber prices surge near 10X on New Years Eve
• BusinessUber and Lyft Are Still Trying to Avoid Acting Like Regular Employers

Uber in the sky

• Uber grounds helicopter flights around Sundance Film Festival
• Uber will keep running helicopter flights at the Sundance Film Festival despite orders to stop
• Uber and Airbus are working together on a new trial helicopter service

Global Uber news

• French taxi drivers shut down Paris as protests over Uber turn violent
• Uber LAX pickup service gets green light
• Taxis block traffic in Budapest, demanding a ban on Uber
• Uber Settles Investigation Into Creepy 'God View' Tracking Program

Related resources
Dear Canadian Taxi Monopoly: your Uber Boogie Man doesn't scare me
Taxi Truths campaign puts lipstick on a pig
Canadian Taxi Monopoly is attempting to curb consumer choice
Uber provides the taxi industry a good kick in the pants

Uber news recap - December 2015

Behind the wheel with Uber in Bogota

A few highlights from the world of Uber news in December:

Worried it will be hard to identify the Uber car picking you up? What if others are waiting for Uber cars too? It turns out there's now an app for that: the new Uber SPOT:

• Uber gives drivers color-coded windshield LEDs to help riders find the right vehicle - GeekWire

Criticism of Uber's surge pricing (aka 'dynamic pricing') hit a new low (or is that high?) with the story of a former happy Uber customer's experience visiting Grand Rapids. Unable to get a taxi after a game with his buddies, the Uber advocate boasted how fast and affordable the service was. After a car quickly arrived, he asked what the fare would be, and the driver said he didn't know. He got quite a shock after the relatively short drive.

• Uber customer gets handed $490 bill for an 18-mile ride - AOL

Toronto taxi drivers still don't get it. Just a week after the Canadian Competition Bureau called for a level playing field in the taxi vs Uber debate, Toronto taxi drivers staged a hunger strike. Then they went onto mass strike actions that only caused Torontonians and visitors alike crave the alternative.

• Toronto taxi drivers stage hunger strike to protest Uber - blogTO
• Uber can’t be defeated from the outside—but maybe from within - Macleans

What if you want to drive for Uber, but don't have a car? The answer just got easier, if you live in Denver:

• Uber is offering cheap rental cars to its Denver drivers - The Verge
• Whose Insurance is it Anyway? Enterprise Offering Rentals To Uber Drivers in Denver - The Truth About Cars

Of course, a little ridesharing seasonal cheer:

• Uber’s Latest Stunt Is On-Demand Christmas Spirit - Money

And on the global stage:

• Angry French Uber drivers have created their own Uber - The Verge
• Uber seems to be getting its butt kicked in China - Forbes
• As Tiger Global Plays Both Sides In Uber War, Other Investors Are 'Furious' - Forbes

Other headlines:

• You can now call an Uber in Messenger, Facebook's window to the world - Wired
• ‘Uber is part of the transportation cocktail’: Jean-Nicolas Guillemette - Financial Post
• U.S. states pass laws backing Uber's view of drivers as contractors - Reuter's
• Former Obama aide, now Uber adviser, says drivers don’t need union - Seattle Times
• Uber is accused of failing a huge number of New Yorkers - Business Insider
• Uber driver recounts nearly 3 hours spent driving shooting suspects - AJC Atlanta
• Uber Snags Another Google Mapping Exec to Lead the Product Team - Re/code

Related resources
Dear Canadian Taxi Monopoly: your Uber Boogie Man doesn't scare me
Taxi Truths campaign puts lipstick on a pig 
Canadian Taxi Monopoly is attempting to curb consumer choice
Uber provides the taxi industry a good kick in the pants

Ridesharing NYC airport choppers take off

Great photo of Gotham Air choppers from their website

Gotham Air is now offering Manhattan business people and commuters an opportunity to skip street traffic and take to the air to reach John F Kennedy International Airport (JFK) or Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) in a matter of minutes with their new helicopter service. Starting this week, rides will go as low as $99 for those beta testing their website and thereafter fares could be on par or slightly higher than taking a taxi.

An app has been developed which enables potential customers to see which flights are available and which ones are still on standby waiting for the maximum number of seats to be filled before take-off.

Don't see a time you like? Request a new flight time, and as soon as 3 others book, your trip is confirmed. We see a Twitter hashtag taking hold.

Passengers head down to the Manhattan helipad to wait in the Gotham lounge before boarding the chopper with noise canceling headphones for their quick trip to the airport in record time.

This has the potential to once again make a small dent in NYC's taxi monopoly with more consumer choice. No word yet on flights from these airports, or on LaGuardia yet.

Related Resources
What It’s Like to Fly from Manhattan to JFK in Less Than Seven Minutes - Condé Nast Traveler
"Uber for Helicopters" Is Gross, Absurd and I Want to Use It Every Day - Gizmodo
Gotham Air is like Uber for helicopters in New York [w/video] - Autoblog
Private luxury transfers from NYC airports to Manhattan - BOOK NOW
Private helicopter transfer from NYC airports to Manhattan - BOOK NOW
Private helicopter transfer from Manhattan to NYC airports - BOOK NOW
John F Kennedy International Airport (JFK) transportation guide
LaGuardia International Airport (LGA) transportation guide
Newark International Airport (EWR) transportation guide
New York Layover Ideas and Things to Do in New York City

Uber vs taxi: news update

Regular readers of this blog will know that we have been covering the emergence of how ridesharing companies (such as Uber, Lyft, Sidecar) are shaking up taxi drivers and the regulators who govern them. While important, we don't want the Uber vs taxi story to overtake our blog, so we are bringing you broader news updates instead.

creative commons image, joakimformo on Flickr

Here's a recap of recent ridesharing stories that are worth reading:

Hard-Charging Uber Tries Olive Branch - NY Times

Uber stands by drivers as Montreal seizes Uber cars - Mashable

Google vs. Uber: The Future of Ride Sharing - Bloomberg

Don't overload Uber, Lyft with new regulations

Vancouver fleshing out new taxi code: council at odds on how to regulate firms like Uber

Geico launches insurance product for Uber drivers

UberXL to carry larger groups in SUVs or minivans

Uber now complies with India’s two-factor authentication requirement, calls it unnecessary and burdensome

Uber Will Add Panic Button And Location/Journey Sharing In India On February 11

The Sleeping Giant: Uber’s Expansion into Greater China

Uber announces kitten delivery service in Australia, cat lovers go wild

Put to the test: Taxi v Uber

Almost 10,000 People Have Signed This Uber Driver's Petition to Add Tips to the App

Related resources
Uber provides the taxi industry a good kick in the pants
Canadian Taxi Monopoly is attempting to curb consumer choice
Taxi Truths campaign puts lipstick on a pig
Dear Canadian Taxi Monopoly: your Uber Boogie Man doesn't scare me
Security issues threaten to define Uber in India