Uber is the undisputed champion of the ride-sharing world, but even it can’t strong-arm local governments like Austin, Texas, that want to enact stricter background check regulations. When Uber left the Texas capital last month, though, an unlikely replacement stepped up to fill the on-demand-ride-sized gap.
In an interview with Recode, parking app Luxe co-founder and CEO Curtis Lee outlined the surge in activity his company has seen in Austin since Uber and Lyft skipped town in May. While Luxe may be a service to help drivers find parking fast through an on-demand valet, it also includes a relatively new service called Drive Home that offers exactly what it sounds like — a valet ride home for you and your car alike — has seen a 140-percent spike in June usage. Overall, traffic is up 32 percent and monthly subscriptions have also jumped 30 percent.
It’s a level of success that Lee explained is a long time coming, especially since Luxe’s Drive Home service — essentially an on-demand designated driver platform — was started six months ago to fill gaps in Luxe’s somewhat limited parking products.
“We looked at our consumer base and saw that our average customer was using us anywhere from … two times per week to multiple times a day, every single day,” Lee told Recode. “So we really saw an opportunity to extend beyond parking for commuting purposes. How do we help the person who has their car, had some drinks, and can’t decide if they want to take an Uber home, which would especially be an issue the next day for the commute?”
Drive Home is also active in San Francisco and Los Angeles, but it only enjoys Uber-free operation in Austin. Still, Lee is confident that regulatory wrinkles — since Luxe’s drivers don’t operate their own cars, Luxe doesn’t have to shell out for expensive mandatory background checks — will allow Luxe to make up some ground on the industry leader whether it returns to Austin or not.
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