By Faiz Siddiqui and Faiz Siddiqui Local reporter covering the D.C. Metro, Uber and Lyft, and transit-oriented tech start-ups Email Bio Follow Greg Bensinger March 29 at 8:45 AM BREAKING NEWS: Lyft began trading on U.S. markets Friday, soaring about 20 percent after its debut.
“We have set ambitious goals for Lyft to broadly deploy autonomous vehicle technology,” the company said. Drivers represent more than just cost concerns for Uber and Lyft. As driver demonstrations in California illustrated this week, they are fighting back against the dwindling cut of the fare they get -- as little as 60 cents a mile in Southern California, only two cents more than the IRS reimbursement rate. And court rulings or legislation could force the companies to consider drivers as employees rather than contractors, driving up their costs by requiring them to offer benefits.
A few tech companies have famously sailed to enormous wealth on the promise of industry-changing technology paying off after many years. Amazon two decades ago was a nascent online bookseller that had yet to realize its vision of becoming a cloud-computing juggernaut that powers the Internet’s one-stop retail shop, ascending to become one of the world’s most valuable public companies. Google, and more recently, Facebook are among the companies that have far exceeded their expectations at launch.