Alphabet Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google is testing a kind of alternative to Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. in the San Francisco area that would allow commuters to join carpools through its Waze social navigation app.
As with so many of GOOGL’s ambitions not related to search, the implications are pretty much nil for Alphabet stock at this point.
The idea, first reported in The Wall Street Journal, is that thousands of area workers at specific firms will find carpools to and from work by connecting through Waze, which Google bought in 2013.
Unlike other real-time driving direction apps, Waze lets users share information about traffic, construction, police activity and more. Layering in a way for Waze users to find each to form car pools seems like a natural extension of the apps’ social utility.
Google vs. Uber?
This isn’t exactly the same turf covered by Uber and Lyft, which are essentially on-demand taxi services. But it’s close enough.
As WSJ reports:
“Waze wants to connect riders with drivers who are already headed in the same direction. The company has said it aims to make fares low enough to discourage drivers from operating as taxi drivers. Waze’s current pilot program charges riders at most 54 cents a mile—less than most Uber and Lyft rides — and, for now, Google doesn’t take a fee. The company says it doesn’t believe Waze drivers’ income is taxable because it considers payments through its service effectively as money for gas.”
Still, this program could set GOOGL on a collision course with Uber at some point down the road, WSJ notes. An executive with Google parent Alphabet recently resigned from Uber’s board because of rising competition between the two companies.
As for what this means for GOOGL’s bottom line or share price, you can file that in the folder that includes driverless cars and other ambitious ideas with no clear ROI anytime soon.
As of this writing, Dan Burrows did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
