WASHINGTON — General Motors, which invested $500 million in ride-sharing company Lyft Inc. in January, is rolling out a new partnership with Lyft that can ultimately put a Lyft driver behind the wheel of a new GM vehicle for nothing.
“Express Drive” launches first in Chicago, but will soon be available to Lyft drivers in D.C., Baltimore and Boston.
For $99 a week, a Lyft driver can rent a Chevy Equinox SUV for $99 a week, insurance and maintenance included. When a driver completes 65 Lyft rides a week, there is no weekly rental cost. Drivers can rent the vehicles for up to eight weeks at a time.
GM says 60,000 people who’ve applied to drive on the Lyft platform in Chicago have been turned down because they didn’t have a car that qualified.
“We’re making sure everyone who wants to be a Lyft driver can be, by providing ultimate flexibility at incredible rates,” said Lyft co-founder John Zimmer.
GM and Lyft also are thinking past drivers entirely.
As part of its $500 million investment, GM plans to jointly develop a network of on-demand autonomous vehicles in the future.
