Lyft is making a bold statement in the US by offering the first-ever taxi subscription service.
If you sign up, you get 30 rides (up to $15 each) for $299 per month. This might shift the perspective of the average consumer : do they really need a second car?
US Today reported the cost of the average car in the US is $33 560, so lease payment would come to approximately $500, based on a five-year financial lease with a 15% down payment. According to statistics, the vehicle uses:
$140 worth of fuel
$92 for insurance
$63.8 for maintenance and tires.
On top of this you’d probably spend $50–100 per month on parking fees plus the time spent parking. Taking all this into account, leasing a car works out at about $800 per month compared with the $299 subscription fee offered by Lyft.
Obviously, it’s a new habit and may require some getting used to. For a reasonably large segment of families, this offer could very well be just what they’re looking for. If you’re a one-car family, the second one you’re thinking about buying could easily be replaced by a taxi subscription. I can see that in time the potential savings could trump the inconvenience. Lyft, Uber, Bolt and other car-sharing company platforms analyze passenger behavior and previous rides so that they can adopt subscription services to their consumers’ real needs.
Looks like taxi subscriptions are making stealthy progress towards satisfying all your logistic requirements, and finally getting you to resign yourself to letting go of that second car.