Lyft Partners With Hertz To Recruit Drivers Who May Not Own A Car
Don’t have a car, but want to make a few extra dollars picking up strangers and taking them point A to point B? A new partnership between Lyft and Hertz car rentals aims to let you do just that — and get free gas, kind of.
Lyft announced a string of new perks for drivers on Thursday in an attempt to build up its driver fleet to compete with other ride-hailing companies like Uber.
Through the partnership with Hertz, Lyft says it will allow drivers on its service to rent SUVs daily, weekly or monthly at a discounted rate. For now, the perk is only available in Las Vegas.
The aim of the new partnership is to get more drivers on the road, even those who don’t own a car. Lyft estimates there are more than 60 million Americans over the age of 24 who don’t own a car, and hopes some of those will be drawn to drive for the company, the Wall Street Journal Reports.
Under the program, Hertz will rent Lyft drivers a standard SUV for $25 a day, $150 a week or $540 a month, or a premium SUV rents for $65 a day, $390 a week and $1,400 a month.
While the rental discounts are about 35% to 40% below normal rates, drivers would have to do quite a bit of picking up and dropping off to actually make money after the rental expense.
In addition to teaming up with Hertz, Lyft unveiled a partnership with Shell gas stations that will provide drivers discounts – ranging from $0.03 off per gallon to free tanks – based on the number of rides they give in a week.
The company says it will pilot the program in several markets in the coming months and expects to rollout the service to all 12,500 Shell stations in the U.S. sometime in 2016.
“The partner ecosystem we’ve extended today is a big step forward in bringing people and communities together through better transportation,” Lyft said in a blog post on the partnerships.
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