The Partnership that Makes Sense

Whether its autonomous driving that a company is after or the mass usage of a battery electric vehicle (BEV) the right way to find out more about what these vehicles will be used for and gathering information is to have a partner in the mobility world. GM and Lyft have been partners for a few months now and GM is planning to provide Lyft with a fleet of vehicles that will help reduce the pollution in their service areas and have some of the most impressive BEVs on the road be the way Lyft customers get around town.

That’s right, Lyft will be the first to receive the new Chevrolet Bolt and Lyft customers will be able to enjoy the amazing drive of the most advanced BEV on the market. The Bolt is the first affordable BEV with a range of over 200 miles to come to market and having Lyft drivers use the Bolt on a daily basis will help the advertising and experience Chevrolet wants customers to enjoy to help drive sales as these vehicles make it to the dealership. If this is how Chevrolet plans to stay ahead of Tesla and their Model 3, it’s a great way to make that happen.

Earlier in the year GM invested $500 million into Lyft to help the ride sharing company increase its reach and become a much larger competitor to Uber than it already had been. The drivers that are an army of independent contractors will now receive the Bolt to give to these drivers in the next few months ahead of the public release of the vehicle which might not make it to dealerships until at least January 2017. This means you could visit a large city over the next few months, before the Bolt is on the market, and take a ride in the new Bolt to see if this is a vehicle you want for yourself.

That seems to be what GM is counting on as the 315,000 drivers of Lyft will be offered the Bolt and Lyft won’t be required to purchase the cars a corporate fleet. Lyft is already has a strong mobility presence in 200 cities across the country which could mean you see Lyft drivers with the Bolt in nearly every major city in the country over the next few months. As much as Uber is testing out their self-driving vehicles in Pittsburgh, it seems Lyft will have a greater immediate reach with these Bolt EV models.

Does this mean Lyft drivers will be limited to the 200 mile range the car has on a daily basis? From what we understand these cars can be recharged in a short timeframe and may be used not only for advertising for GM, but also for data collection to see how often they need to be recharged and how many miles are driven on the daily basis. This will give GM a good idea of whether or not a BEV is the right solution for a metro mobility fleet.