Re:Lyft losing as much as $50M a month, president confirms
by georgeecollins on Wednesday July 13, 2016 @12:37PM
(#12087545)
Exactly - saying it is profitable in the US, minus interest and stock, is another way of saying it is not profitable just cash flow neutral in some markets. Like Groupon it is a business for sure, and probably a big one. But it may be overvalued. And there is this assumption that when self driving cars come they will not be disrupted. But why not?
Re:Lyft losing as much as $50M a month, president confirms
by dredmorbius on Wednesday July 13, 2016 @07:17PM
(#12090499)
Selling dollars for dimes, no?
Fixed costs are presumably low, so it can't be scale that would lead to profitability.
Utilisation rates? I've not heard a lot on if rates could come down to compensate for more passenger-miles. But of course a fair bit of the cost must be tied to passenger-miles.
Intentional avoidance of profit by acquiring or R&D? I suppose this could be the play for self-driving cars in the future. As you say, automated cars seem to be the easiest way to drop the passenger-mile cost. But I don't know if automated cars will be a winner-takes-all market, at least globally and in a way that would lead to monopoly-like profitability.