Lyft is admitting that some part of traditional taxi services are worth emulating today by letting people in select Florida cities book Lyft rides with just a phone call. The new “Call A Lyft” feature should be “perfect for seniors and folks without access to the Lyft app,” says Lyft.
Calling 631-201-LYFT (631-201-5938) between 8AM-8PM ET on Monday through Friday will let a potential rider book a ride. Lyft says that it will tell riders the full price before confirming and send texts to track the ride once it’s paid for and booked. It should be familiar to anyone who’s ever called a cab, though Lyft notes drivers are not expected to offer assistance getting into a car and wheelchair accessible rides aren’t available at launch. Call A Lyft also requires a phone with support for SMS messages.
Lyft isn’t the only ride-sharing company to fall back on phone calls. Uber experimented with a similar feature in 2020, allowing customers in Arizona to dial 1-833-USE-UBER to book a ride. Prior to both companies falling back on taxi service tactics, companies like GoGoGrandparent stepped in as an intermediary for ride-sharing and food delivery companies, allowing older folks to dial a phone number and have someone else handle the apps.
Lyft and Uber pushed out traditional taxi and cab services with a theoretically easy-to-use service and a large pool of drivers, but Call A Lyft illustrates that sometimes the old methods were that way for a reason — because they worked.
Call A Lyft is available now and Lyft has a full list of supported cities on its site.
Add Motional to the very short list of companies that have tested fully autonomous vehicles on public roads. The Hyundai-Aptiv joint venture announced that it has tested its vehicles without safety drivers behind the steering wheel on public streets in Las Vegas.
The tests, which took place in February, came less than three months after the company received the green light from the state of Nevada to test its vehicles without a human safety driver. “Multiple driverless vehicles” were tested, conducting maneuvers such as “navigating intersections, unprotected turns, and interactions with other road users, including pedestrians and cyclists,” the company said.
Of course, there are some caveats. A Motional employee remained in the passenger seat during the tests, and was capable of stopping the vehicle if needed. (No interventions in vehicle operation by the passenger have been recorded yet, a Motional spokesperson said.) Motional is allowed to test anywhere in Las Vegas, but is keeping its vehicles in residential areas for now. And the company has only tested its vehicles during the daytime.
Motional is unique insofar as it sought a safety evaluation from an independent third party prior to conducting its fully autonomous testing. Germany’s TÜV SÜD is a “world-leading independent technical service provider … with extensive experience assessing driverless technology,” according to Motional. The firm was given access to the company’s proprietary systems, after which it endorsed Motional’s plan to operate with an empty driver’s seat.
Currently, only a small handful of AV operators have actually deployed fully driverless vehicles, also known as Level 4 autonomous vehicles, on public roads. Waymo, the self-driving unit of Alphabet, has been operating its Level 4 vehicles in the suburbs of Phoenix for several years now, and it recently began offering rides to paying customers. Cruise, a majority-owned subsidiary of General Motors, recently started operating Level 4 vehicles in San Francisco. Yandex, the Russian tech giant, tested its Level 4 vehicles in Las Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show in 2020. And Chinese tech firm Baidu started testing its vehicles without safety drivers in its home country late last year.
Motional as a joint venture was first announced in March 2020, when Hyundai said it would spend $1.6 billion to catch up to its rivals in the autonomous vehicle space. Aptiv, a self-driving technology company that is an offshoot of global auto parts supplier Delphi, owns 50 percent of the venture. The company currently tests its vehicles in Las Vegas, Singapore, and Seoul.
Motional’s engineers were responsible for the world’s first robotaxi pilot in Singapore, as well as the first cross-country New York to San Francisco autonomous trip. Over the last two years, Aptiv’s fleet of safety driver-monitored autonomous taxis in Las Vegas (in partnership with Lyft) have completed over 100,000 trips. But the company’s Level 4 vehicles will be kept separate from its ride-hailing program with Lyft, so members of the public won’t be getting rides in fully driverless cars.
Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates spent over $200 million campaigning for Proposition 22, the most expensive ballot measure in California history, successfully convincing voters that they couldn’t properly pay and protect their workers if they were forced to classify them as full employees — at least, not without cutting back service or substantially raising the price you’d pay.
But now the dust has settled, every single gig economy company that backed Prop 22 has raised those prices anyway. Instacart was the last to join the bait-and-switch today, according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Carolyn Said, who previously told us in January exactly how much some of these companies are charging Californians to pay for worker benefits: $1-$2 per meal with Uber, $1.50 with Grubhub, up to $1.50 per ride with Lyft, and a whole additional 3 percent increase per order with Instacart (for a total of 8 percent, though it doesn’t apply to the company’s “Express” subscription plan yet). Postmates is charging as much as $2.50 extra per order, our sister site Eater reported.
Instacart threatened price increases if they lost Prop 22.
Now that they won, they’re raising them anyway.
Gig corporations have no shame.
We cannot let them roll this horrible law out to other States. pic.twitter.com/FAF9LJ91yA
— Gig Workers Rising (@GigWorkersRise) February 19, 2021
Instead of paying their workers, gig corporations pumped $200M to pass prop 22, claiming the worker protections guaranteed under the law would force them to drive up cost & pass it on to customers. Well guess what? They did it anyways. It’s honestly disgusting at this point. https://t.co/tMH2jBjWPE
— California Labor Federation (@CaliforniaLabor) December 14, 2020
Just to be clear, these companies explicitly pushed voters into supporting Prop 22 to avoid higher prices. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi publicly said prices would increase between 20 and 40 percent in big California cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, and up to double in smaller towns. In California’s official Voter Guide, which accompanied mail-in ballots, supporters of the bill warned there would be “significantly higher consumer prices” if Prop 22 failed to pass.
Companies like Uber and Lyft succeeded in part due to those scare tactics, and by appealing to voters that they could help workers get more protections and higher pay this way instead of potentially putting those workers’ jobs at risk. (It probably didn’t hurt that the app companies bombarded both drivers and passengers with messages using their own apps, which triggered a lawsuit from drivers who claimed Uber was bullying them.)
But there’s still an open question whether Prop 22 is actually helping workers, regardless of how much more we’re paying to supposedly make that happen. The Guardian reported yesterday that some drivers claim pay has actually fallen and the job has become less reliable.
In the UK, Uber just lost a five-year legal battle today over a similar issue, which will give workers there a guaranteed minimum wage, paid holiday, and other protections (though they will not necessarily be “employees”). But here in the US where Prop 22 succeeded, it’s opened the door for other parts of the country to potentially replace many regular employees with contractors too. Bloomberg has a good piece you should read about what that future might look like, for better or for worse.
Google Maps is adding a couple of new useful features: the ability to pay for parking or buy a train ticket right from the app.
Google Maps is integrating two mobile parking payment services into its app, Passport and ParkMobile. Both offer the ability to find, pay for, and replenish parking meters or parking lot fees through a smartphone app. Now, those features will also be available in Google Maps. According to the company:
Simply tap on the “Pay for Parking” button that appears as you near your destination. Then enter your meter number, the amount of time you want to park for, and tap “Pay.” Need to add more time to your meter? Easily extend your parking session with just a few taps.
The ability to pay for parking in Google Maps will be available in 400-plus cities in the US, including Boston, Cincinnati, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, DC, and more, Google said. Android phone users will get the feature first, with iPhone owners soon to follow.
Paying for public transportation will work much in the same way. If you are searching for transit directions in Google Maps, you’ll see an option to purchase tickets appear alongside your results. Similar to the pay for parking feature, customers will need to have a Google Pay account linked to a valid credit or debit card to make the transaction.
Then, customers can use their phone — either in a tap-to-pay situation or by showing a digital ticket to a conductor — to ride public transportation. And in places like the San Francisco Bay Area, customers will be able to buy a digital Clipper card directly from Google Maps. The feature will be available to use in over 80 transit systems around the world, Google says.
A number of transit agencies around the world have modernized their fare collection methods to include contactless or tap-to-pay mediums like Google Pay and Apple Pay. Some that rely on weekly or monthly passes, like London’s Oyster card or San Francisco’s Clipper card, have also started working with Apple and Google Pay to integrate those payment passes in their apps.
It’s the latest feature in Google Maps’ ongoing effort to make itself more user-friendly for commuters and transit riders. In 2019, it added new transit crowdedness predictions, allowing customers to see how crowded their bus, train, or tube is likely to be before heading out on their commute. It also added a feature that pairs transit directions with biking and ride-sharing options so customers can get directions using a variety of transportation modes.
Google isn’t the only tech giant attempting to appeal to transit riders. Uber and Lyft have both recently started integrating transit directions into their respective apps. Customers who live in Denver can even purchase train tickets using their Uber account. Both companies are building sophisticated algorithms that rely on reams of data from transit agencies pertaining to routes and schedules. Moreover, it’s a race among tech giants to become a one-stop shop for transportation.
Amazon plans to install high-tech video cameras in its delivery vehicles in order to better monitor the behavior of drivers as they deliver packages, according to a new report from The Information.
The hardware and software will be supplied by Netradyne, a California company behind a platform called Driveri that uses cameras and artificial intelligence to analyze a driver as they operate the vehicle. The camera then gives real-time feedback — including automated suggestions like “distracted driving” and “please slow down” — while collecting analysis that is used to later evaluate drivers during their shifts, the report states.
An unlisted, week-old video hosted on the website Vimeo details the partnership. It’s narrated by Karolina Haraldsdottir, Amazon’s senior manager for last-mile safety, and outlines the company’s goals as reducing collisions and holding drivers more accountable for mistakes on the road. The initiative mirrors one Amazon has taken with its long-haul trucking fleet, in which SmartDrive cameras monitor freight drivers for signs of fatigue and distracted driving, according to a separate report from The Information.
The marketing video showcases how the cameras record “100% of the time” (though without audio and not viewable live) and upload footage to a dedicated safety team for review if any one of 16 signals is triggered through an incident happening on the road or an action the driver takes. The driver is able to manually disable the camera, but only when the ignition is off. Drivers are also allowed to manually upload footage when they choose to.
Screenshot by Nick Statt / The Verge
“We’re always searching out innovative ways to keep drivers safe. That’s why we have partnered with Netradyne to help make improvements to the driver experience,” Haraldsdottir says on camera. She describes Netradyne as the first company to merge AI with video “to create industry-leading safety systems, reducing collisions by a third through in-cab warnings and another third through improving driver behaviors.”
Haraldsdottir says Amazon wants to “set up drivers for success and provide them support for being safer on road and handling incidents if and when they happen.” But The Information talked with some drivers who are concerned that the use of Netradyne’s technology might constitute unfair and invasive surveillance and place even further burdens on them as they try to meet tight deadlines.
Screenshot by Nick Statt / The Verge
Amazon has historically relied on last-mile operators like the US Postal Service and UPS to get packages to customers’ doorsteps, but the company has increasingly begun using its own growing logistics network of airplanes, trucks, and delivery vehicles to cut costs. For last-mile deliveries, that has included both third-party delivery companies Amazon contracts directly and a growing platform of Uber-like workers using their own vehicles under the Amazon Flex platform.
As part of this network, Amazon operates a fleet of tens of thousands of delivery drivers all over the country that, as part of these third-party firms, are not technically company employees. Nonetheless, these drivers operate Amazon Prime-branded vehicles and are subject to any restrictions or monitoring the company puts in place in many ways similar to the intense control Amazon exerts over its warehouse workers. That includes minute-by-minute surveillance via mobile app of where a driver is on their programmed route and whether they’re falling behind schedule.
Screenshot by Nick Statt / The Verge
Those monitoring tools appear to also include new Netradyne cameras, although The Information says it’s not clear when Amazon intends to install the cameras and how widespread throughout its delivery fleet they’ll be. “We are investing in safety across our operations and recently started rolling out industry leading camera-based safety technology across our delivery fleet,” an Amazon spokesperson told The Information in a statement. “This technology will provide drivers real-time alerts to help them stay safe when they are on the road.”
In using its own network of both professional and civilian delivery drivers, Amazon has faced scrutiny in recent years for prioritizing speed and consumer convenience over the safety of delivery personnel, while at the same time placing increasingly onerous burdens on its drivers dictating the route they take and the order in which they drop off packages to avoid delays.
Last fall, Amazon was caught surveilling contract Flex drivers in private Facebook groups to see whether some were planning labor actions like work stoppages or strikes. In March of last year, Amazon came under fire for declining to pay Flex drivers forced to stay home due to the coronavirus, despite Uber and Lyft opting to compensate their drivers.
Amazon delivery drivers have also caused dozens of accidents over the last half-decade, including some that resulted in deaths, but the company often avoids liability for the accidents due to the way it employs third-party firms and independent contractors, reported The New York Times in 2019. Just earlier this week, Amazon was ordered to pay more than $61 million to Flex drivers as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over wage theft allegations.
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Amazon has offered help to newly appointed US President Joe Biden to meet vaccination goals. The new US administration plans in the first 100 days of office, 100 million US Providing citizens with vaccine. Now the online retailer emphasizes the role of 800. 000 Amazon employees as ” systemic workforce “who ensure that customers can receive products and services at home during the crisis. Most of the employees are unable to work from home, which is why they should be vaccinated “at the earliest appropriate time” according to Amazon.
Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s consumer division, stated in the letter Arstechnica received that it was ready to support the government in matters of distribution, IT and communication. Amazon has also reached an agreement with a medical service provider and is able to vaccinate employees in its own facilities as soon as the required vaccine doses are available.
Sought-after vaccines Clark had already contacted the US disease control agency CDC in December to work towards a speedy vaccination of the Amazon workforce. There were similar efforts by the driving service providers Uber and Lyft. Both companies are pushing for drivers to be vaccinated in a timely manner, according to the Wall Street Journal. In addition, the companies are in talks with those responsible from the healthcare sector about the possibility of offering free trips to vaccination appointments for low-income people. Uber is also planning, together with vaccine manufacturer Moderna, to disseminate information on the safety of vaccinations via the ride-sharing app.
Occupational safety under criticism Amazon is one of the winners of the Corona crisis and hired a record number of new employees last year. Hundreds of thousands of people work in the US parcel and logistics centers. The effectiveness of Amazon’s precautions to protect employees from corona infections was recently discussed. The service union ver.di reported outbreaks in the shipping centers in Garbsen, Bayreuth and Borgstedt during the last Christmas business. In the USA they were infected up to 19. September around 19. 000 Employees with Covid – 19, announced Amazon in early October 2020 in a blog post.
Instacart will give its shoppers — the workers who pick and fill grocery store orders for customers — a $25 stipend for the time they take off to get a coronavirus vaccine, the company announced Thursday.
Beginning February 1st, any full-service Instacart shopper in North America who has shopped at least five batches — which can include one or more customer orders — in the past 30 days and can also verify they have received a vaccine will be eligible. Shift leads and in-store shoppers who are actively employed when they receive the vaccine will be eligible as well.
The company says the $25 is intended to provide shoppers with financial assistance as they take time away from shopping. Full-service shoppers are independent contractors who both pick and deliver groceries, while in-store shoppers are part-time Instacart employees who do in-store shopping only.
Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta said in a statement the company is taking “proactive steps to advocate that government agencies recognize Instacart shoppers as critical essential workers who deserve early access to vaccines.” It’s joined by other gig economy companies like Uber, DoorDash, and Lyft that have lobbied for their independent contractors to receive priority vaccine access.
Instacart, which does not provide medical benefits for its independent contractor shoppers, has unveiled several initiatives to demonstrate it is attempting to protect its workers from becoming infected with COVID-19, but with mixed results. Under an agreement with the attorney general for Washington, DC in June, the company expanded its sick pay benefit to anyone diagnosed with COVID-19 by a health care provider, even without a positive test, and provided a telemedicine option through Doctor on Demand.
Instacart also said it would provide sick pay to shoppers who live with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. However, shoppers have reported that the application process to receive sick pay has been difficult to navigate and the benefit was not always approved.
In March 2020, the company announced its plan to distribute health and safety kits to its shoppers, which include a washable face mask and hand sanitizer. It says it’s delivered more than 620,000 of the kits to shoppers via its app and website, but again, shoppers have described a complicated process for receiving the kits. The kits were announced just as a group of Instacart shoppers staged a strike to push the company for better protective gear.
In June, Instacart announced it was changing the way it handled customer tips, after the announcement of a congressional inquiry into the practice of tip-baiting. That’s when a customer rescinds or reduces a shopper’s tips after their order has been shopped and delivered.
A group of Uber and Lyft drivers in California filed a lawsuit Tuesday in state supreme court to overturn a ballot measure that allows the companies to continue treating its workers like independent contractors.
The drivers claim that Prop 22, which was approved by California voters last November, violates the state’s constitution by “stripping” the state legislature’s ability to empower workers to organize, as well as by “illegally” excluding ride-hail drivers from the state workers’ compensation program.
“Every day, rideshare drivers like me struggle to make ends meet because companies like Uber and Lyft prioritize corporate profits over our wellbeing,” plaintiff Saori Okawa said in a statement. “With Prop 22, they’re not just ignoring our health and safety — they’re discarding our state’s constitution.”
The drivers challenging the constitutionality of Prop 22 are being supported by labor unions like SEIU and the California Labor Federation, which unsuccessfully opposed the measure in the run-up to the election.
But ultimately labor was outspent and outmaneuvered by companies like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash, which poured over $200 million into the “Yes on 22” campaign to exempt them from a California state law that would require them to treat their workers like employees. The companies aggressively opposed the law, arguing it would eliminate driver flexibility, while also increasing consumer prices and wait times.
The law, AB5, represented an existential crisis for the companies, none of which have ever turned a profit and which have pursued costly efforts to develop autonomous technology in the hopes of eventually replacing drivers and delivery workers entirely. In response, the companies proposed a ballot measure that would keep their workers as contractors, while also providing a modicum of added benefits.
It’s unclear how successful drivers will be in overturning Prop 22. The measure was written in a way to withstand future challenges, including a provision that requires a seven-eighths majority of the state legislature for any modification, and ensuring that it will be all but impossible to invalidate.
But drivers are trying to use this language to argue that Prop 22 was illegal from its inception. The plaintiffs note that California’s state constitution gives the legislature “unlimited” authority to provide for a worker’s compensation system, “so that authority cannot be limited by a statutory initiative.”
“We look forward to the court affirming that gig companies cannot strip workers of their fundamental right to bargain for better pay and working conditions — and that corporations alone should not dictate the laws in our state,” said Bob Schoonover, president of SEIU Local 721 and SEIU California State Council, in a statement.
There have been ballot measures successfully repealed in California in the past, but mostly through additional ballot measures. If the lawsuit fails, drivers’ and supportive unions’ only other recourse to overturn Prop 22 may be another ballot initiative.
Drivers are organizing car caravans in San Francisco and Los Angeles in support of the lawsuit against Prop 22.
Uber Green, the feature that allows customers to request rides in electric vehicles, is coming to more cities. After initially launching in 15 cities last September, the ride-hail company is bringing the feature to 1,400 additional cities and towns in North America. The new markets include Austin, Calgary, Houston, Miami, New York City, Tucson, Winnipeg, Washington, DC, and hundreds more.
Uber claims that “100 percent” of rides on its platform will take place in electric vehicles by 2030 in the US, Canada, and Europe, and by 2040 for the rest of the world. But rather than pay drivers directly to trade their gas-burning vehicles for electric ones, the company will impose an extra fee on trips completed in an electric vehicle to incentivize drivers to make the switch.
For a dollar extra, riders can specifically request a hybrid or electric vehicle. Uber drivers who use hybrid or electric vehicles to pick up passengers will get an extra 50 cents per ride, while drivers using specifically battery-electric vehicles get another dollar on top of that — for a total of $1.50 extra per ride.
Uber is also announcing new partnerships designed to get more drivers in less polluting vehicles. In Los Angeles, Uber drivers can rent hybrid or electric vehicles through Avis’ new EV rental program. Drivers in San Francisco can rent a vehicle with Ample technology and quickly swap their EV batteries in mere minutes, then return to the road fully charged.
Uber has been linked to rising car congestion and increased pollution in cities. A new study from Carnegie Mellon found that the benefit from people ditching their cars to use ride-hailing services is negated by new vehicles added to the road by aspiring Uber and Lyft drivers.
Lastly, Uber is expanding its public transportation feature to more cities. The company is launching its journey planning feature, which allows customers to swipe through bus and train schedules and plan their entire journey on public transportation, in Atlanta, Auckland, Brisbane, Buenos Aires, Guadalajara, Philadelphia, Rome, Bangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai.
In addition, Uber is launching Uber Transit, which allows customers to plan multimodal trips including trains, buses, walking, and Uber rides in Mexico City and London. They are the third and fourth city to get Uber Transit, after Sydney and Chicago.
For years, Uber has faced criticism for its negative effects on public transportation in the US. Declining bus and subway ridership has been pegged to the rise of Uber’s popularity in dozens of cities. The company hopes to blunt that criticism by giving transit equal footing in its app.
The holiday season has arrived — but don’t panic. If you forgot to buy a gift for someone, you can’t decide what to give your loved one, or the item you wanted to give can’t be delivered on time, it’s not a problem. Digital gifts are the most convenient and easiest gifts. And with so many digital gifts to choose from — like a subscription to a popular streaming service, some extra cash for iTunes or a new game, or a gift card from your favorite retailer — we made a list of a few quick gift ideas.
A streaming service like Disney Plus could be the perfect gift for a stay-at-home friend or relative.Image: Disney
For movie / TV show streamers
With the pandemic continuing to keep most of us inside, there’s never been a better time to subscribe to one (or multiple) streaming services and indulge in great shows and movies. There are so many streaming services to choose from now, such as Disney Plus, Netflix, and many others.
Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus bundle
Disney Plus
ESPN Plus
HBO Max
Peacock Premium or Premium Plus
Netflix gift card from Amazon, Target, Best Buy, or Walmart
Hulu gift card from Best Buy, Target, or Walmart
YouTube TV
YouTube Premium
YouTube gift card from Amazon
Amazon Prime gift membership
Sling TV gift card from Best Buy, Target, or Walmart
Consider a Spotify gift card for the music lover in your life.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
For music-lovers
Whether you prefer Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube Music, a music gift card is not a bad gift for someone who enjoys tuning out all of the noise and jamming to some funky tunes.
Spotify gift card from Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart
Apple Gift Card (which can be used for purchases for anything Apple, including products, Apple Arcade games, and iTunes or App Store purchases). Also available at Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart.
YouTube Music subscription
For Switch owners, Nintendo eShop or Switch Online memberships are good digital gift options.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
For gamers
There are a lot of options when it comes to buying games online or gifting a subscription. Whether your giftee could use some extra cash to buy games from a digital storefront or to renew their membership for a video game console, there’s a slew of options to choose from for the gamer in your life.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, which includes Xbox Live Gold, plus access to Xbox Game Pass for console and PC, and access to the xCloud game service. Also available at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Newegg, Target, and Walmart.
Xbox Game Pass for consoles subscription. Also available at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, and Target.
Xbox Game Pass for PC subscription. Also available at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and Walmart.
Xbox Live Gold subscription. Also available at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Newegg, Target, and Walmart.
Xbox gift card. Also available at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Newegg, Target, and Walmart.
PlayStation Store gift card. Also available at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Newegg, Target, and Walmart.
PlayStation Plus subscription. Also available at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Newegg, Target, and Walmart.
PlayStation Now is Sony’s cloud gaming service, similar to Microsoft’s xCloud. A subscription is also available at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Newegg, and Walmart.
Nintendo Switch Online 12-month individual subscription at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and Walmart
Nintendo Switch Online 12-month family membership at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart
Nintendo eShop Gift Card available at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and Walmart
Steam gift card available at Best Buy, GameStop, Target, and Walmart
Battle.net (Blizzard Entertainment) gift card available at Amazon, Best Buy, GameStop, Newegg, and Walmart
Google Play gift card available at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target
GameStop gift card available at Amazon and GameStop
Uber is a great gift for the traveler in your life.Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
For travelers
While I would not advise traveling right now if you do not need to, Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb offer digital gift cards, which are great for someone who likes to travel or doesn’t like taking public transport. This way, when it is safer to travel again, you can treat them to a nice car ride or even a vacation.
Uber gift card. Also available at Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart.
Lyft gift card. Also available at Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart.
Airbnb gift card available at Amazon and Target
Southwest Airlines gift card available at Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart
Get the foodie in your life a gift card to DoorDash or UberEats.Image: Uber
For foodies
Most food-ordering apps have online gift cards available for purchase. This is convenient if your loved one is feeling too lazy to cook dinner one night, doesn’t feel like going grocery shopping, or needs to stay indoors. Here are a few gift cards for the food-lover in your life:
Instacart gift card
DoorDash gift cards are available at Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart
UberEats gift cards are available at Amazon, Target, and Walmart
Grubhub gift cards are available at Amazon and Target
Whole Foods gift cards are available at Amazon
For everything else
If you’re not sure what to get someone or you want to give them more leverage on what they want to buy, a general gift card might be the best option. From app stores to department stores, here are some gift cards for everyone:
Google Play Store gift card is available at Target, Best Buy, Amazon, and Walmart
Ridesharing provider Lyft plans to offer autonomous taxis in several US cities from 2023. The cars for this are to be developed by Motional, a joint venture between the South Korean automaker Hyundai and the US auto supplier Aptiv. It was introduced in August of this year.
Lyft has been using technology from Aptiv since 2018 in Las Vegas driverless BMW taxis. The transport service provider states that 96 percent of those who have already taken an autonomous taxi before would do so again.
People still necessary Lyft also cooperates with Google’s sister company Waymo when it comes to autonomous driving. Lyft has not yet announced in which US cities the company will now operate with Motional.
Lyft emphasizes that cars with human drivers will continue to be part of its range. After all, it could take years before autonomous vehicles are so technically mature and so widespread that they can bring passengers seamlessly to their desired destinations.
Following their victory last month in California on the Prop 22 ballot measure, Uber and Lyft have unveiled the new “benefits” for California drivers on their platforms, including guaranteed minimum earnings and stipends for health care.
“Even though we’ve won the vote, we’re still not done,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a blog post announcing the benefits. “In fact, we’ve only just begun to improve independent work together.”
Gig economy companies, including Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash, spent more than $200 million on the “Yes on 22” campaign. Prop 22 exempts them from AB5, a California state law requiring them to treat their workers as employees. The companies said AB5 would increase wait times and prices for customers, while taking flexibility away from drivers.
Prop 22 allows the companies to continue categorizing drivers as independent contractors and also provide some additional benefits. Opponents argued that the provisions in Prop 22 were not equal to the economic security of full-time employment.
Under Prop 22, gig workers — including ride-share drivers — will be paid 120 percent of California’s minimum wage of $13 per hour, which increases to $14 per hour in 2021. For ride-share drivers, this applies only during active hours: when they have a passenger in their vehicle or are en route to pick up a passenger. It requires workers with 15 active hours a week to receive a health care stipend.
Uber’s benefits program calls for drivers to be paid at least 20 percent more than the pickup city’s minimum wage plus 30 cents per mile for expenses. That 30 cents per mile doesn’t apply to delivery workers on foot or bicycle. Drivers who earn less than the guaranteed minimum over a two-week period will be paid the difference automatically.
Lyft’s pay schedule is similar, with its first guaranteed earnings period beginning on December 16th. At both companies, drivers who earn more than the guaranteed minimum will keep all of their earnings — there is no upper limit. They’ll also keep 100 percent of their tips
For health care, Lyft will provide a quarterly health care subsidy for drivers who drive an average of at least 15 hours per week. To qualify, drivers have to provide proof they are enrolled in a qualifying health care plan. Uber’s health care stipend also requires an average of 15 hours per week, and drivers have to prove they are the primary policyholder on a qualifying health insurance plan. Uber drivers receive 50 percent of the stipend — amount still TBD — if they average 15 active hours a week and 100 percent of the stipend when they average 25 active hours per week.
Drivers can qualify for the health care subsidies beginning on January 1st.
To cover the costs of the new benefits, Uber said it would apply a fee of up to $1.50 to the cost of rides and up to $2 on meal deliveries, the Financial Times reported. Lyft did not provide details on any additional customer fees.
Prop 22 mandates current ride-share drivers receive safety training before July 1st, 2021. Drivers who sign on after January 1st will be required to complete the safety course before they take their first trips. Drivers will also be required to take breaks of at least six hours if they drive more than 12 hours in a 24-hour period, and they will be enrolled in injury protection insurance that covers medical expenses, disability payments, and survivor benefits.
The US government awarded a big transportation contract to Uber and Lyft this week, authorizing the ride-hailing companies to provide transportation to up to 4 million federal employees and their families.
The General Services Administration, the procurement arm for the federal government, granted the five-year contract to Uber and Lyft, the companies confirmed. The contract is worth up to $810 million, though it’s unclear how much each company will receive.
While individual federal employees have previously been able to use ride-hail services for travel, the new contract allows the companies to formally launch their services within agencies and directly work with officials to promote the service.
The contract was awarded to Uber for Business, the ride-hailing company’s business-to-business division. “The expansion of our customer base to include government is a natural next step for us, and we’re proud to help federal agencies tackle some of the biggest administrative challenges they face,” Ronnie Gurion, global head of Uber for Business, said in a statement.
Lyft also hailed the contract as a good sign for the growth of its business. “Lyft already works closely with select agencies, but with this award under our belt, we see an opportunity to be the preferred rideshare partner for many other top federal agencies,” a spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for GSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in a blog post back in April, the agency said it was able to negotiate a 2–4 percent discount with the companies, compared with large commercial customers. Uber and Lyft also agreed to waive technology fees charged to use back-office vendor data and reporting capabilities, the agency said.
The contract with Uber and Lyft “modernizes official travel and will make it easier, and cheaper, to use rideshare services for official travel,” Federal Acquisition Service Assistant Commissioner for Travel, Transportation and Logistics Charlotte Phelan wrote. “No new apps to download – and no paper receipts to lose.”
California has long been ground zero for autonomous vehicle testing in the US, but the state has never allowed companies to use those vehicles to make money from a commercial ride-hailing service. That changed last week when the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved two new programs that allow autonomous vehicle operators to launch their own robotaxis in the state.
The CPUC, which is in charge of creating regulations for AVs in fleet services (e.g., taxis and ride-hailing), has been working on the new rules for several years now. The two new programs — the Drivered Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Program and the Driverless Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Program — “allow participants to offer passenger service, shared rides, and accept monetary compensation for rides in autonomous vehicles,” CPUC said in a statement.
CPUC Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma called the programs “important steps to support our study of how autonomous vehicle fleets can be leveraged to support the grid as a demand side management resource, dovetailing on our efforts to incorporate transportation into the electric sector.” California has indicated it intends to ban the sale of new combustion-engine vehicles starting in 2035.
Companies interested in participating in the two new programs will need to obtain either a charter-party carrier Class P permit or a Class A charter-party certificate in the Drivered AV Passenger Service pilot program issued by the CPUC, as well as an AV testing permit from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. But don’t expect to see a bunch of AVs accepting passengers any time soon: the process to apply for either CPUC program is expected to take several months at least.
California has the most stringent rules in the country for AV operators, requiring companies to obtain a license for different types of testing, disclose vehicle crashes, list the number of miles driven, and the frequency at which human safety drivers were forced to take control of their autonomous vehicles (also known as a “disengagement”).
Unsurprisingly, AV companies mostly hate California’s requirements, but considering the state is home to the vast majority of the engineers and programmers who work on autonomous vehicles, they have little choice but to participate. Currently, 60 companies have an active permit to test autonomous vehicles with a safety driver in California. Five companies — Cruise, Waymo, Nuro, Zoox, and AutoX — have an additional permit that allows them to test fully driverless vehicles without human safety drivers behind the wheel on public roads.
Companies who want to launch robotaxi services will be required to submit quarterly reports to the CPUC that contain “aggregated and anonymized information about the pick-up and drop-off locations for individual trips; the availability and volume of wheelchair accessible rides; the service levels to disadvantaged communities; the fuel type used by the vehicles and electric charging; the vehicle miles traveled and passenger miles traveled; and engagement with advocates for accessibility and disadvantaged communities,” the commission said.
There are only a handful of paid self-driving taxis services in the US right now. Waymo, the self-driving division of Alphabet, operates Waymo One outside Phoenix, Arizona, which provides around 1,000-2,000 rides a week. Three other companies, Lyft, Aptiv, and Motional, have completed around 100,000 trips in Las Vegas over the last several years. Other than that, the vast majority of AVs on the road are either performing deliveries or operating in a testing-only capacity.
Annabel Chang, head of state policy at Waymo, hailed the decision as a crucial step to get more autonomous vehicles on the road. “This long-awaited agency action will allow Waymo to bring our fully autonomous Waymo One ride-hailing service to our home state over time,” Chang said in a statement. “The CPUC’s decision comes at a key time as we bring more of our latest technology to San Francisco and look forward to putting our Waymo Driver to use in service to Californians.”
Motional, the self-driving car operator backed by Hyundai and Aptiv, has received the green light to roll out a test fleet of fully driverless cars in Las Vegas. The state of Nevada has granted the company permission to operate its autonomous vehicles without a human safety driver behind the wheel.
Currently, only a small handful of AV operators have actually deployed fully driverless vehicles, also known as Level 4 autonomous vehicles, on public roads. Waymo, the self-driving unit of Alphabet, has been operating its Level 4 vehicles in the suburbs outside of Phoenix for several years now, and it recently began offering rides to paying customers. Yandex, the Russian tech giant, tested its Level 4 vehicles in Las Vegas during the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. Motional says it is preparing to launch its own vehicles in the “coming months.”
Motional as a joint venture was first announced in March 2020 when Hyundai said it would spend $1.6 billion to catch up to its rivals in the autonomous vehicle space. Aptiv, a self-driving technology company that is an offshoot of global auto parts supplier Delphi, owns 50 percent of the venture. The company currently tests its vehicles in Las Vegas, Singapore, and Seoul.
Motional’s engineers were responsible for the world’s first robotaxi pilot in Singapore, as well as the first cross-country New York to San Francisco autonomous trip. Over the last two years, Aptiv’s fleet of safety driver-monitored autonomous taxis in Las Vegas (in partnership with Lyft) have completed over 100,000 trips.
The company’s Level 4 vehicles will be kept separate from its ride-hailing program with Lyft, a spokesperson said. That means members of the public won’t be getting rides in fully driverless cars. “We look forward to launching fully-driverless public services in the future,” the spokesperson said.
Motional’s “next-gen” vehicles, which are currently under development, will be fully driverless and available to the public. “These robotaxis will be ‘driverless-ready’ — meaning they’ll come off the assembly line integrated with the sensors, computers and software to enable fully driverless operation,” the spokesperson said. “We expect to make them available to fleet partners and operators in 2022. The details on implementation and integration will be worked through as these partnerships come together.”
Several companies have received permits to deploy Level 4 vehicles in California — including Waymo, Nuro, Zoox, Cruise, and AutoX — though none have actually begun testing.
Deploying vehicles without safety drivers on public roads is a huge risk that most AV operators have been extremely cautious about taking. The state of Nevada issues permits to companies that wish to test autonomous vehicles, but it generally has less stringent rules about public operation than California.
“We’re not taking the shortest or fastest route to driverless operation on public roads,” Motional CEO Karl Iagnemma said in a blog post. “We’re taking the safe route — and sometimes reaching the figurative crosswalk takes a few extra steps. We hope that others will follow our lead.”
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