The Looming Mobility Brands Takeover

Burney Simpson

Car brands are dead.

Long live Uber, Lyft, Car2Go, and similar ridesharing-style providers, writes Lukas Neckermann, a ‘transforming mobility’ expert and author of The Mobility Revolution: Zero Emissions, Zero Accidents, Zero Ownership.

Neckermann’s book times well with an April Fast Company profile of Lyft that declares the firm will become a major transportation player due to some smart partnerships and the rise of mobility.

Neckermann argues that young people are becoming loyal to brands like Uber and Lyft, but are indifferent to GM, Ford, Mercedes, and others.

That means the day is coming where the big auto OEMs will be white label manufacturers of vehicles that are bought and used by the rideshare firms.

For instance, nearly three-quarters of Americans and Germans said they would rather use a robot-taxi than purchase a new car, according to a 2015 Roland Berger survey that Neckermann cites.

“Giving up car ownership and driving is becoming a real option for more and more people,” he writes in a blog post “Branding for the Mobility Revolution.”

In response, GM made a $500 million investment in Lyft last year and Wall Street values Uber at $40 to $50 billion.

I was thinking about car ownership as I heard my Honda dealer’s repair shop give me a fix-it estimate of close to $2,000 for my 1999 Civic.

I’ve loved this wonderfully-built car since the day I bought it. Boy, does Honda know its stuff. But I’m convinced that the auto OEMs have turned to repair/maintenance revenue as more folks delay buying new cars.

I know it’s not a straight one-up, one-down connection. But that’s my perception. And it adds to my lean to dropping ownership.

LAST MILE/FIRST MILE SOLUTION

That trend is just part of why Lyft has a shot in the mobility business, according to Fast Company.

“We want to create an alternative to car ownership, which is a $2.15 trillion market in the U.S. alone,” Lyft co-founder John Zimmer tells the magazine.

The FC profile, ‘The Race is On,’ is a typically upbeat (let’s face it - rah-rah) breeze that the magazine churns out. But it makes some solid points.

Lyft may be about 1/10th the size of Uber but it has wisely avoided going into markets like China on its own. Instead it partnered with Didi Kuaidi, the Chinese rideshare firm that already has infrastructure there. In contrast Uber is losing $1 billion a year trying to chew Big Red.

Lyft also hooked up with Starbucks last year, though that’s only amounted to rewards program trade-offs.

The potential is big. Fast Company suggests that Lyft could designate as special pick up spots the 12,000 Starbucks cafes, including those in grocery chains.

If true, that becomes a solution to the last mile/first mile problem, at least here in the States.

Grab a coffee, buy some veggies, get a ride. Works for me.