Lyft's newest service: Driving yourself

Matt Weinberger / Business Insider

Lyft Rentals is now available to some California customers in the Lyft app.

• Lyft has been quietly offering a car-rental service in three California cities.
• When you book a vehicle in San Francisco, Oakland, or Los Angeles, the company will also offer customers $40 of ride credit to get to and from the pickup location.
• The company said it's another way to help stave people off of individual car ownership.
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Lyft is trialling a car-rental service in California, the company confirmed to Business Insider this week.

The service, which works much like a traditional car-rental, is available in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles. It also comes with a $40 credit to ride to and from the pickup location.

Rates are fairly similar to those of some legacy car-rental companies like Enterprise and Avis among others ($40 to $80 per day, depending on the type of vehicle). A Volkswagen Passat, for example, was offered at $75 per day when Business Insider reporters tried out the service on Friday. Other options are the Volkswagen Atlas, Mazda 3, and the Mazda CX-5.

See also: Apply here to attend IGNITION: Transportation, an event focused on the future of transportation, in San Francisco on October 22.

The minimum age for Lyft's car-rental service is 22-years-old, the company says, and there doesn't appear to be an extra fee for drivers under 25, as with most car-rental companies.

The test is an extension of other transportation forms Lyft has recently expanded into, like bikes and scooters, a representative said. The company has long said it wants to see a world where no one owns personal vehicles and they are instead shared. This seems to be another move in that direction.

Lyft has long offered drivers on its platform the option to rent cars through a program called Express Drive. That's made possible through a partnership with Avis Budget Group, FlexDrive, and Hertz.