What Lyft’s IPO Means For The Future of Mobility
By George Arison and Toby Russell, Co-CEOs, Shift
This is the time so many of us in the auto-tech and mobility fields have been waiting for: Lyft is finally going through with its IPO, and Uber, apparently isn’t far behind. For us, as pioneers of on-demand urban mobility, this moment was always an inevitability, and it offers crucial lessons for the future.
As the founders of Taxi Magic (today known as Curb), and later as founders of Shift, it was clear to us even from the earliest days of smartphones that mobile technology would transform how on-demand services, especially transportation, are procured, with unlimited possibilities for local logistics and services.
Over the years, we’ve seen rapid changes to mobility and the auto industries. Today, shared bikes and scooters are a fixture on the streets of most major cities, while peer-to-peer services let people rent cars on-demand in their neighborhoods. But not everything is going to weather the ongoing changes, and there’s a lot of variables still ahead.
Though autonomous vehicles are the topic du jour, the field still has a long way to go, and there is still quite a bit of time before the public is ready to accept it. Electric vehicles are continuing to grab headlines, but Americans are still largely shopping for trucks and SUVs. Most importantly, much still needs to be proven about both Uber and Lyft’s business, since their unit economics are upside down, while consumers are super sensitive to pricing (we know from publicly available data, for example, that minor price increases in New York City resulted in substantial fall in ridership across all platforms).
We’re reading the tea leaves with an eye towards the future of auto, and Lyft’s IPO is a strong sign that consumers still want cars to get them from A to B. Car ownership is sticking around for the foreseeable future. It will keep thriving thanks to Lyft and Uber’s businesses, being an addition to personal car ownership, rather than a replacement.
But it’s also evident that how cars are being used and purchased is undergoing transformation. Despite the elusive Millennial generation being blamed for upending practically every industry and market, just as many of them are still looking to buy cars, especially as they have children and transition to living in the suburbs. And they want to see, touch, and drive them first; though Tesla toyed with the idea of closing many of its showrooms, we’ve found that 90 percent of auto buyers still want to be able to get behind the wheel before they make such a big decision. As leaders at Shift, we see people continue to take advantage of our on-demand test drive feature and turn to our online marketplace at a growing rate.
More broadly, the IPO is a signal for the transportation sector. Though ridesharing inarguably upended the urban mobility landscape, it’s only one piece of the transportation ecosystem. The future of transportation isn’t just Uber and Lyft — it’s also Scoot, Tesla, Turo, Shift, and countless others. Urban mobility, as it’s been for so many decades, will be a collage of micro-solutions and services that get people around when and how they need to.
This IPO is a big moment for our shared transportation industries, and a clear indication that mobility will continue to be one of the most prescient issues of our time. All of us have to continue to innovate for better solutions that offer more convenient, fair, accessible, and equitable ways for everyone to get around. That’s why we continue to invest in exceptional technology and people to bridge these gaps. It’s a massive accomplishment that Lyft has made it to this point, and a sign that it’s full steam ahead for the rest of us in the mobility space.
