2017 – The Rideshare Year In Review

Alright, here’s the major events from the rideshare sector in 2017.

January

• Taxi drivers strike at NY airports in response to Trump’s Muslim ban. Uber refuses to support the strike or stop surge pricing. The #DeleteUber Movement begins in response.
• Uber settles a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that charged that it misled drivers about pay. The settlement was for $20 million. Uber did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

February

• Amit Singhal, Uber’s Senior VP of engineering, resigns because he didn’t tell Uber that he left Google because of a credible allegation of sexual harassment.
• Waymo (a Google subsidiary) sues Uber for stealing self driving car technology. The lawsuit is ongoing. Google wants at least $1 billion in damages.
• Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is caught on video being an asshole to a driver.
• Sarah Fowler, a former Uber engineer, writes a blog post detailing the pervasive sexual harassment she had to endure while at the company.

March

• Uber temporarily halts its self driving car program after one of its vehicles crashes in Tempe, Arizona.
• Lyft settles a driver mis-classification lawsuit (employee or independent contractor) for $27 million.

April

• Thousands of Uber & Lyft drivers fail new stricter Massachusetts background checks.
• Lyft raises $500 million at $7.5 billion valuation.

May

• Lyft and Waymo enter into a strategic autonomous vehicle partnership.

June

• Uber & Lyft return to Austin after leaving in 2016.
• Jaguar Land Rover invests $25 million in Lyft.
• After months of pressure, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigns.
• Uber finally adds tipping as part of its recently lauched 180 days of change.
• Eric Holder delivers his report on sexual harassment to the Uber board. It’s scathing.

July

• Uber market share falls from to 77%, from 84% at the beginning of 2017.

August

• Lyft announces it has doubled the number of rides given in 2016, in just the first six months of 2017.

September

• FBI admits there’s a criminal probe into Uber’s attempts to monitor Lyft drivers.
• London strips Uber of its operating license.

October

• Alphabet, Google’s parent company invests $1 billion in Lyft.

November

• Lyft raises another $500 million.
• Uber admits it covered up a massive data breach of driver and rider information, likely breaking many state and federal laws in the process.
• Softbank offers to invest in Uber at a 30% discount, calling into question Uber’s $68 billion valuation.

December

• The Justice Department forwards a letter to the judge in the Waymo v. Uber trial, letting the judge know that Uber may have withheld evidence in that case.
• As part of the kerfuffle in the Waymo v. Uber lawsuit, it comes out that Uber is now the subject of five criminal investigations.

Be sure to check back this weekend for our 8 Rideshare Predictions For 2018.