EMERGING TECH
EMERGING TECH
EMERGING TECH
Lyft launches car rental service in San Francisco and Los Angeles
Ride-hailing firm Lyft Inc. is cruising into the car rental business.
Lyft Rentals will enable users to rent cars through the company’s app starting in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles, the company announced today.
The new service is competitively priced, with rentals starting at $35 per day with unlimited millage. Various insurance options are available starting at $16 per day and refueling is promised to be charged at market prices.
At launch, customers will be able to rent a Volkswagen Passat sedan and the Volkswagen Atlas SUV in San Francisco or a Mazda 3 sedan and Mazda CX-5 SUV in Los Angeles. The vehicles are all said to come equipped with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and phone chargers as standard. Customers can also select free add-ons such as ski racks, car seats and tire chains.
“With Lyft Rentals, we’re giving riders the flexibility to rent a car for weekend getaways, business trips, or even to run errands,” the company said in a blog post.
The service is pitched as an extension of Lyft’s promise to minimize the need for personal car ownership. “You shouldn’t have to own a car to get around (or to get out of) your city. But sometimes you need a car to go longer distances,” Lyft wrote.
As an added bonus, those using Lyft rentals are also being offered two $20 ride credits to use Lyft to get to and from the pickup and drop-off points of the rental vehicles.
Whether Lyft will find a willing audience for the product is another matter. Rival Uber Technologies Inc. offered a car rental service in partnership with Getaround Inc. in April 2018, but the service was discontinued in November the same year.
The potential that the service could find success spooked investors in leading car rental firms. CNBC reported that shares of Hertz Corp. dropped today almost 6%, to $15.26, and Avis Budget Group Inc. fell 5%, to $30.89.
The rental car market is certainly open to challenge as one of a few markets that haven’t faced serious disruption from tech startups. For Lyft, the rental service gives it an additional and seemingly appealing product offering that further differentiates it from Uber.
Photo: stockcatalog/Flickr
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