Lyft

I usually bicycle around Silicon Valley leaving my car parked. It usually starts, but sometimes it seems the starter just spins, oh well, with a manual transmision it isn't the end of the world to have to push it on. However yesterday I decided to try 10 of the $20 rides that Lyft gave me, thanks it now feel like I have to blog about this. Get your $20 with code: ralf4 I wanted to go to Docker, Kubernetes, CoreOS and Big Data in Apache CloudStack (Hosted at Apple) so there were 8 cars swarming around and one came in 9 min, didn't show up in the right driveway so I walked a bit, but a quick call solved it.

Once you get there you get a clear email showing you what was charged.

Thanks for riding with Bachson!

Ride ending February 24 at 6:04 PM

Ride 11.0 mi & 41 min:	$28.19
Trust & Safety Fee:	$1.50
Tip:	$2.00
Lyft Credits:	-$20.00

-

Total charged:

$11.69

Had no bag, just to travel light, but given the way this works, it is pretty good, can bring a few people, cars usually have 4 empty seats, maybe 3, not sure, but it works well fast and I can rely on it, costs are higher than driving yourself, of course.

Keep in mind the prices below are in Silicon Valley, look up your pricing.

Lyft Pricing

Base Charge	$2.25
Cancel Penalty	$5.00
Cost Minimum	$5.00
Cost Per Mile	$1.35
Cost Per Minute	$0.27
Trust And Safety Fee	$1.50

Plus Pricing

Base Charge	$3.37
Cancel Penalty	$5.00
Cost Minimum	$7.00
Cost Per Mile	$2.02
Cost Per Minute	$0.40
Trust And Safety Fee	$1.50

It is rather annoying that you can't use Lyft or Uber on the computer, as Chrome also has location available, it should be seem less to hail your ride from the computer to than move the experience to mobile when you leave your desk. So this is smart phone only. Lyft works on iOS and Android, haven't tried it on a tablets it seems to be discouraged due to worst GPS and connectivity.

You come to realize that future versions of Taxi's will be self driving, after all the cost of this would so sink if you had electric self driving cars parked at a charger while they wait for you to summon them. These app based taxi companies seem like the perfect place to try them first.

So I could drink beer at my meeting or wine, no problem, 4 min after asking for a Lyft, one was roaming the parking lot. My second driver also had an Uber phone as did the 3rd driver, seems common.

Ride 7.9 mi & 22 min:	$18.95
Trust & Safety Fee:	$1.50
Tip:	$3.00
Lyft Credits:	-$20.00

-

Total charged to credit card ***xxxx:

$3.45

So try them while they are viciously giving out the free rides, this is better and cheaper than a taxi, although it is P2P so you really depend on the algorithms to weed out the bad players. However is it worst than a taxi in that sense, I think not, the rating system should weed out bad players and the rally bad players, there are a small percentage of people anyhow, they could just as easily drive a taxi.