Cox Shilling Lyft to Dealers

[Alexander Lau]

https://www.mediapost.com/publicati...lerships-get-easy-access-to-lyft-via-cox.html

 

[Alex Snyder]

This seems to be inline with Cox's push toward "mobility." I believe that push is being done on the belief that less consumers will want to own cars in the future.

 

[john.quinn]

Smart. Trend is clearly on the wall, I mean, people don't want to buy anything anymore. Look at all the houses sitting around, empty. Furniture stores just jam-packed with inventory. Consumer Credit is at an all-time low; people just aren't buying stuff, not running-up the credit card bills. I mean, look at Amazon; they obviously nixed plans to build in NYC because they see the writing on the wall for consumer spending.

It's finally happened: people just don't want stuff anymore. They're saving their money, realizing that the grass is not greener on the other driveway. The age of the acquisition of things is over.

Or not. I dunno.

 

[jscole86]

From a dealership’s perspective, it makes sense from a fixed ops point of view. Customer arrives at service and needs to head to work for the day. Dealer orders lyft to take the customer to work, and orders lyft to bring customer back to dealership when service is finished.

Uber / Lyft already have a business account that allows business to hail rides for customers. This could help to reduce the capital we have to invest in courtesy transportation for the service department, as well as possibly save interest expense if those vehicles are floored. I give it a thumbs up.

 

[john.quinn]

From a dealership’s perspective, it makes sense from a fixed ops point of view.

Thanks Josh!

Have you looked at the numbers? I remember Uncle Joe and I going at it on this a while back. Unless I'm mistaken, I took the position that it was cost prohibitive after taking into account the write-down then sale of the loaner unit.

But as you and we all know, I am more often full of crap than not...

Have you run the numbers?

 

[jscole86]

Have you run the numbers?

No, haven't run the numbers, because we don't have lyft/uber in our area. It would also depend on your brand, whether you write down the loaner fleet or not, whether you own it for cash vs floorplan, etc.

 

[Viracocha]

And liability. Sometimes spending a bit to absolve your store from liability is worth it.

 

[Alexander Lau]

There's no doubt with this in place, it would reduce waste in terms of missed appointments. That's probably a larger number than we care to admit. In fact, it's happening with Uber Health and Lyft Health now. Missed doctor's appointments, granted that's going to be covered by Medicare.