
Launch HN: Carve (YC S19) – Rent Cars from Local Dealerships - amosgewirtz
Hey HN!<p>We&#x27;re Amos and Sam, co-founders of Carve. (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.drivecarve.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.drivecarve.com</a>)<p>Carve is a car sharing marketplace where you can rent cars from local dealerships. So if you don’t own a car but need one for a few days, you can get a car that fits your needs at a reasonable price.<p>We built this product because when we moved to New York after college, we both gave up cars, and even though most places we needed to be were easily accessible via Subway or Lyft, there were still lots of things we wanted to do that we couldn&#x27;t using public transit or ride share apps. When it came to leaving the city to ski in Vermont or hike upstate, for example, the existing options were all either expensive (Zipcar, Car2Go), inconvenient (Avis, Hertz), or inconsistent (Turo, Getaround).<p>Sam and I are both from the Midwest, so neither of us are strangers to car dealerships—drive ten miles in any direction from our childhood homes and you&#x27;ll see massive lots filled with cars waiting to be sold. We started speaking with these businesses and realized that keeping all those cars sitting around is really, really expensive. Compounding this problem is the fact that new cars sales are falling and dealership inventory levels are historically high.<p>In response to the issues that dealerships face and the slate of bad rental options, we built a platform on which dealers can list their cars to be rented. It&#x27;s good for dealers because they can offset financing costs and depreciation of idle inventory without much effort. For renters, it means a short-term rental option that’s on average 30% cheaper any other comparable option, offers a wider selection of cars, and allows for human-free pickup and drop off.<p>It works as follows. First, browse our site for a car. Once you make a reservation, we&#x27;ll email you an Uber voucher for $20 off your trip to and from the vehicle pickup location (a 24-hour valet lot in the city). When you arrive at the pickup location, show the attendant your reservation email and they&#x27;ll fetch you your car. Once you’re done with the car, drive back to lot and hand the keys to the attendant. Use the Uber voucher to call a car to bring you back home.<p>At the moment, we&#x27;re only operating in San Francisco, but we&#x27;ll be expanding soon to Oakland and LA. If you&#x27;re in SF, try us out and use the promo code HN10 to get 10% off of any rental!<p>We’d love to get some feedback and are happy to answer questions!
======
rainburg
I worked for a startup that had a similar business model: some car dealership
has a fleet of cars depreciating in value (last year’s models, loaners, trade-
in cars) and they provide their inventory to the rental startup to partially
cover the losses.

And it seemed like a great idea, at first. Customers had an option to either
pay 2 to 3 times less for a normal boring rental car, or… to pick up something
nice that had a V8 and leather heated seats in it. The other part of the
equation was the customer service: in order to compete with Hertz, Avis and
others, it had to be exceptional. And it was.

There was only one problem. Renting out used cars was only a temporary and
partial solution for the dealerships. Eventually, all these cars had to be
sold. But, as it turned out, if you’re a dealership and if you’re renting out
a car for 2/3 of the month, you’re constantly losing opportunities to sell it.
Unsold used cars depreciate in value for evenn longer periods of time, take up
more and more space… and those rental earnings no longer make financial sense.

Hopefully it won’t be the same case here.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Super good point. I've definitely run into that objection while trying to sign
on used car dealerships--i.e. that they can't sell the car if it's being
rented, so putting it on our platform might mean forgoing a sale.

But that's fine, because it basically means that dealerships typically only
list cars that they have more than one of. So for example, if they have three
Audi A4s in inventory, they might list only two of them with us. When they
sell the other one, they'll take an A4 off Carve and put it back into sales
inventory. In other cases, dealers will give us cars during periods of low
sales and then putting them back into inventory when sales pick back up, thus
minimizing the risk of a foregone sale.

~~~
mbreese
Just to play devil's advocate...

But wouldn't a car dealer try to have a variety of cars models instead of
multiple cars of the same model? Wouldn't it be better for them to be able to
show a potential customer a variety of cars rather than just one model? For
example, if they could only have 3 cars, wouldn't it make more sense for them
to have an A4, a BMW 3, and an Acura TLX (for example) rather than 3 A4s?

Or maybe used car dealers have significantly more stock than I'm giving them
credit for?

~~~
bluedino
It's not about selection. Used car dealers buy what they can sell, and what
they can get cheap at auctions.

------
legitster
>30% cheaper any other comparable option

I have a problem with this - the prices you list are much higher than
comparable offerings from the national chains. Maybe that's because your
pricing is more transparent? If so, you should bake the user's drive-away
pricing right into the marketing of the page and compare against "the other
guys". Or have a cost calculator that shows how much they would be saving.

You have a super-interesting value prop, but none of it is really available on
the site. Even a dorky "how it works" on the home page would be nice.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Totally makes sense.

The prices we're showing on the site are the all-in daily rates. So if the
price for an Explorer is $65/day and you rent it for 2 days, you'll be charged
$130. Whereas when I look at Hertz, the price for renting a standard SUV for
their downtown location from the 28th to the 30th is $140 per day, but for two
days the total all in cost is $320 without any extra add-ons.

It might actually make sense for us to show the prices on our site without
taxes+fees included so as to look comparable with other companies' prices.

~~~
jjeaff
The problem is that other companies taxes and fees can vary widely. Plus, they
will have a high pressure insurance pitch when you rent. Not sure if your
product includes that or not.

~~~
mywittyname
> high pressure insurance pitch

Them: would you like to purchase insurance?

Me: No, I have my own thanks.

Them: okay.

Maybe since I rent almost exclusively from airports, I have a biased
experience, but I don't think of rental insurance as being high-pressure.

~~~
didgeoridoo
They’ll always claim your insurance almost certainly doesn’t cover rentals,
hoping that you don’t realize it almost certainly does.

(I also find airports to be the WORST possible environment for this kind of
thing; you’re always rushing to return your car so you can catch your flight.
You are forced to just accept that the scratch on the back left bumper wasn’t
there when you rented the car, because fighting about it will cause you to
miss your flight. So it’s a $500+ repair fee or a $500+ plane ticket. They
have you over a barrel.)

~~~
dragonwriter
> They’ll always claim your insurance almost certainly doesn’t cover rentals

I've never had such an insurance pitch. They usually pitch a “damage waiver”
gap insurance which assures that any amount not covered by your insurances
deductible is covered.

> I also find airports to be the WORST possible environment for this kind of
> thing; you’re always rushing to return your car so you can catch your
> flight. You are forced to just accept that the scratch on the back left
> bumper wasn’t there when you rented the car, because fighting about it will
> cause you to miss your flight.

Never had that experience either, everytime I've rented at a major chain we've
done a damage walkaround at pickup, often the rental agency employee has noted
things I would have missed, and on return (even at airports!) there's never
been a problem.

Of course, I've never been so late back to the airport with a rental that
pointing out that the damage was identified on the pre-rental walk-around
would jeopardize my flight, either.

------
gregkerzhner
The prices seem pretty hight to me, certainly not cheaper than the national
brands.

If you rent the car for just 1 or 2 days, its pretty comparable to the
national brands (but certainly not 30% cheaper). The cheapest car they offer
is $45 per day, while the national brands seem to be about $55 per day or $90
for 2 days (in the city itself. Airports are much cheaper).

Any periods longer than that and the pricing breaks down. For a rental of 1
week, you can get a car from Alamo for $200 in downtown SF, but its $315 from
carve.

Also, I've rented a lot of cars in my life, and the quoted price is always
what I pay. They try to upsell you on two things - the insurance, and the
prepaid gas, but as long as you say no to them, you shouldn't be charged any
more than the quoted price.

That being said, depending on how smooth the pickup service was, I would
consider using this. The worst part about renting a car is going to the
office, watching someone type into a computer for 15 minutes (what are they
typing for so long anyways?), and trying to upsell you on a bunch of crap. If
I don't have to deal with that, and the price was comparable, I would
certainly go for it.

2 questions

1\. how do you handle paying for gas?

2\. are there any mileage limits?

~~~
amosgewirtz
We're definitely trying to make pick up and drop off as seamless as possible--
literally just call the Uber, get to the lot, show the attendant your
reservation, and drive off. The rental car branch experience you're mentioning
is an experience we think we can beat for sure.

On price, typically the cheapest cars they're offering are slightly lower end
than our cheapest, though we're definitely trying to add some more budget cars
to our service. Also, as our insurance costs go down, we'll be able to lower
prices--maybe not massively, but I think it will certainly make our service an
easier sell.

Re: mileage limits, we don't have any. With gas, we give it to customers on a
full tank and ask that they return it full.

~~~
hef19898
Wouldn't unlimited mileage have direct negative impact on resell value of the
cars, forcing dealerships to factor that in and increase rental prices?

------
blhack
Im interested in how this works on the dealer side. Most dealers don’t own
their inventory, they’re financed through “floor planning” companies like AFC.

Dealers pay substantial fees for the short term credit required to keep these
things on their lots.

It seems like bad business to pay a huge finance fee only to rent the car out
and have it not be on your lot anymore.

I’m also pretty curious about the tax and registration implications here.
Dealers currently enjoy very different insurance, tax, and registration
modalities than consumers do. State regulatory bodies are really sensitive to
fraud in this space (getting a dealers license so you don’t have to pay tax on
your super car is a common structure). If you are now buying/financing
vehicles for the purpose of renting them out, it seems like you’re in a
different classification than an automotive dealer.

Seems to me that targeting consumers a la Turo is much smarter. Curious the
rationale surrounding this model.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Once floor planning and depreciation are factored in, it still makes sense to
put certain new cars on our platform, because off the lot depreciation is less
substantial and rental revenues thus offset these costs. On other cars, namely
luxury cars, you're absolutely right that it's not profitable to put new cars
on our platform (though it still makes financial sense for used luxury cars).

The reason we're targeting institutional owners (i.e. dealerships) rather than
individual owners a la Turo is because it's generally less expensive to
acquire dealership cars (i.e. much easier to onboard a dealership group with
hundreds of cars than to get consumers one by one).

~~~
vl
> to put certain new cars on our platform

“New” cars? Wouldn’t the act of renting them out transform them into used cars
and illegal to sell as new?

------
neil_s
This is amazing, wish you'd launched on Friday and I would have been one of
your first customers.

I live in SF, needed to go to an event in San Jose with 2 other friends who
live in the city. Looked at all the options on Friday. Zipcar needed a
membership card which I didn't already have, Turo was slightly more expensive
for the car near me ($60/day), Lyft Rental was super-duper expensive ($109 for
the day), Lyft rideshare was even more so ($120 each way). Ultimately went
with National, which due to my company's corp plan, was $40/day ($60ish
retail) for any car (got a sports car), with CDW and liability and no
deductible (both due to corp plan) with a slow checkout experience in SoMa.
With Carve offering an (admittedly less nice) car for $45/day with Uber
credits both way and a quick checkout, I would definitely take that up. Would
be even nicer if there was a loyalty plan (so that my rentals for work can
subsidize my private ones) and home delivery.

Quick UX bug: On the latest version of Chrome on a laptop, if I select a
pickup date and then the same date as my dropoff, it seems to clear the pickup
date. I can still successfully hit search and see the right results.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Ahh, we'd love to have had you try it. Next time :)

Loyalty/membership program is something we've been thinking about and will
likely implement sometime over the next few months.

Great bug catch!

------
lancewiggs
Perhaps, if you have not already, put in a "buy this car now" feature into the
app for the dealer and the clients. It should spring up after a certain amount
of time, and/or at journey end.

That way the dealer can use this as a way to manage clients trying before they
buy, and every rental client is a potential buyer.

Obviously allow the dealer to make offers to the client, but non-obviously
allow the renter to make offers to the dealer. And obviously take a (small to
start) commission.

~~~
amosgewirtz
That's a really interesting idea. Only problem I foresee is that we might have
rentals on that car lined up into the future, though we do have duplicates of
most of our cars so we could get around that.

~~~
lancewiggs
and the dealer can always get them into a new/different colour vehicle.

~~~
mdibiase
Or, even better, you could just upgrade the next client to a higher tier
(unless the client, of course, disagrees when communicating this upfront or
the higher tier is fully booked). I guess the cost of the upgrade to the next
client is definitely covered by the sale of the car you had already reserved
earlier.

------
NKCSS
This makes no sense... car prices are $45-65/day, but you get $40 in Uber
vouchers to get to and from the place you got to pick your car up, leaving
$5-25 for gross profit. There's no way that can be made profitable. That's
$1825-$9125 gross profit/yr if you rent it out 365 days a year... This has to
pay for depreciation, insurance, maintenance, and have a profit margin for
Carve and the Dealership...

Not everyone will need the full voucher amount, maybe some people will rent it
multiple days, but still, if you offer this, people will use it instead of
asking a friend to drop them off/take a bus/train, etc...

~~~
amosgewirtz
You get $20 total in Uber credit, not each way. Also, the voucher only works
for trips that either start or end at the parking garage, so can't be used for
other random trips.

True though that reservations become more profitable for us the longer they
are.

~~~
NKCSS
Step 2:

> We’ll pay up to $20 for your Uber to the dealership pickup location.

Step 3:

> We’ll send you another $20 Uber voucher to cover the ride back.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Oops, thanks for catching that! Error fixed :)

~~~
NKCSS
Maybe fix your downvote as well...

------
patentatt
Do the dealerships sell the rented cars as new or used? Do they disclose that
a car has been used as a short term rental?

~~~
OrangeMango
A car can be sold as "new" as long as the warranty in service date has not yet
been activated. Dealers use "new" cars as demos, for test drives, and intra-
dealer transfers and deliveries.

If you ever go to buy a new car and it has more than 20 miles on the odometer,
you should verify the warranty in service date before buying. If it has been
activated, you should be getting a price that makes the transaction
financially worthwhile.

~~~
spike021
Anyone who knows what they want out of a "new" car isn't going to want to
accept one that already has 50+ miles on it, and 50 already is stretching it.

As a potential new car owner, you don't know how that car was driven for those
tens or possibly in this case hundreds of miles.

Maybe not everybody cares, but there will definitely be a segment of the
market that does. I don't think that's really an issue for this startup, but
would be for any dealer they're working with that doesn't want to take
significant hits because of it.

------
nexuist
Typically the minimum rental age is 21 but I see in your FAQ it's actually 25
for Carve[1].

I feel like there is a huge market for ages <21 as that would be the time that
new adults would need a car and would not necessarily accept the
responsibility of paying monthly loans or have access to credit that would
allow them to buy one outright. They would have the capacity to have enough
money saved to rent a car for a few days or weeks, but they are turned away by
every player in the space.

I guess this is more of a general question than pointed at you, but since you
guys have researched the market maybe you'd be equipped to answer it. How come
nobody offers rentals to <21 drivers? Furthermore, a question for Carve
specifically, why 25 instead of 21? Would dealerships not bite even though the
common minimum age for rentals is 21?

I understand that accident rates among this demographic are incredibly high
and that would complicate your liability. What I don't get is why seemingly
nobody in the car rental business wants to service this market - couldn't you
just offer beaters or end-of-life cars to high risk drivers? Nobody needs a
brand new Nissan Murano to drive 70 miles upstate. You can do the same drive
in a 25 year old Corolla. I suppose I am biased because I am <21 myself (20),
but I also own my car outright so I wouldn't be in the target market for this.

[1] [https://help.drivecarve.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360031105291-H...](https://help.drivecarve.com/hc/en-
us/articles/360031105291-How-old-do-I-have-to-be-to-make-a-reservation-Are-
there-any-other-requirements-I-need-to-meet-)

~~~
amosgewirtz
We'd love to serve customers younger than 25, and the only reason we don't is
because insurance becomes prohibitively expensive. As a young company with
very limited loss data, it was tough to get a carrier to underwrite a policy
that doesn't have fairly strict driver eligibility requirements.

That being said, we're currently negotiating with a different carrier and will
hopefully be able to rent to people 22 and up within the next 6 weeks.

~~~
nexuist
Thank you for the quick response. I wish you the best of luck!

------
everythingswan
I have only rented a car a few times recently, for skiing and hiking far from
home, but I like the idea of a smoother experience and I love anything that
creates less waste :)

[https://www.drivecarve.com/search?startDate=2019-11-8_3-00pm...](https://www.drivecarve.com/search?startDate=2019-11-8_3-00pm&endDate=2019-11-10_4-30pm)

^^ I know it's 2019 and this is expected but I really appreciate this URL
structure for search results. I have spent a lot of time working on booking
sites and it used to frustrate me to no end that some projects used a very un-
friendly URL structure. This will help your marketing team so, so much over
time.

I'll offer some critique of the booking process that you probably already know
of: travel is highly dependent on trust signals and push mechanisms like Best
Purchase Guarantees, People Looking at This Hotel, countdowns, etc. Some I
find gross while others necessary. I think you could look at the booking
experience and find plenty of room to grow there. Right now, the car
experience feels barren and fake to me. I bet there are some things you will
find very helpful, like MPG, etc. so it's just about testing those
assumptions.

Best of luck!

~~~
amosgewirtz
Thanks for the feedback! I'll let Sam know you like the URL structure :)

100% agree with this. This is V1 so we're working on updating the homepage and
individual car pages to make it look less barren and add a degree of social
proof and trustworthiness.

------
brogrammernot
I work for one of the major players in a similar space, and the best advice I
can give you is to stay away from delivery because of the capital expenditures
(lots of fundraising or massive credit lines) it would take to set up that
network.

The "easy MVP" of delivery will be tempting - drive the vehicle to the
customer, drop it off, the employee takes uber back but I would suggest
staying away from that temptation.

I'd be interested in the deprecation curves you're modeling on the vehicles as
I'm just trying to ballpark what that break-even point is for the dealer. The
other issue for the dealer is that while they have excess inventory, they
typically have excess inventory on vehicles that aren't moving quick enough so
I don't think the target is luxury models but more functional users (e.g. your
situation in NYC makes sense. You need a car to get away to a destination and
the car itself doesn't matter much as long as it's clean and runs)

Looking forward to seeing how you guys grow.

~~~
amosgewirtz
That's exactly where we're at in the thought process on delivery. Much more
efficient to bring the customer to the car, not vice versa, and not all that
much worse a UX.

~~~
brogrammernot
I'd still advise and openly admit as a random stranger on the internet you can
disregard this, that the Uber code path is much better until you guys scale
much much more.

------
sailfast
You may also want to check out NextCar - these folks own a bunch of East Coast
dealerships and decided to start renting around their dealerships:
[https://nextcarrental.com/](https://nextcarrental.com/)

They work out of dealerships as well as airports which can provide an edge for
some local rentals.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Interesting--I'll definitely give these guys a look. More and more dealers are
getting in to the rental space on their own.

------
crtlaltdel
can you quantify national chains being “inconvenient”?

i find those sorts of statements to be a sort of “biz-smell”. it is easy to
make dismissive claims about incumbents...and dangerous when those claims do
not clearly map to value statements about your product/service. They are
“inconvenient because of X, unlike us because of our feature/service/attribute
Y”.

if someone has never rented a car from a national chain, or if they have never
had an issue doing so (which is my experience) your assertion without context
may fall flat.

the uber voucher is neat, but i’ve had avis bring a car out to my house and
drive me home after returning it to the lot. all i had to do was chat with a
human for 1-2min and explain my personal logistics. my experience is an
outlier...but informs my analysis of the “inconvenient” claim.

Regardless, great work launching! I will be looking forward to you expanding
geographic coverage so I can give you a spin :)

~~~
amosgewirtz
If you're a frequent car rental customer and are part of some of the bigger
companies' loyalty programs (Avis Preferred, National Emerald, etc.) and
typically rent from airport locations, than the rental experience can actually
be really great.

But in a lot of use cases, specifically for people living in big cities that
don't own cars, the experience is slow and expensive. To use me as an example,
when I was living in New York I wanted to go skiing in Vermont and needed a
car for the weekend. On the several occasions I used one of the big car rental
companies, I'd pay in excess of $80/day for a midsize sedan, trek to a branch
which was often far from where I lived, and wait in line to sign a bunch of
paperwork at a desk. Another thing I found problematic was that I never new
exactly which model I was going to get until I got there.

Peer-to-peer services solve certain aspects of these problems but were, in my
experience, inconsistent--sometimes the car was nearby and great and other
times it was far away, dirty, and the host was unresponsive.

We're trying to combine the scalability and variety you get with peer-to-peer
services and the consistency you get with direct-to-consumer car rental.

~~~
dragonwriter
> If you're a frequent car rental customer and are part of some of the bigger
> companies' loyalty programs (Avis Preferred, National Emerald, etc.) and
> typically rent from airport locations, than the rental experience can
> actually be really great.

I'm none of those things, and when I've rented the experience has been great.

> On the several occasions I used one of the big car rental companies, I'd pay
> in excess of $80/day for a midsize sedan, trek to a branch which was often
> far from where I lived, and wait in line to sign a bunch of paperwork at a
> desk

Every rental agency I've rented with has had pickup service of some sort (in
the last few years, usually Uber/Lyft ordered by the rental office), and
because they are smaller footprint and have business driven by accessibility,
they tend to be more conveniently located for more people than dealerships.

------
dwoozle
This would be great if it helped me rent the cars I’m interested in buying.
I’m trying to evaluate an Audi Q5 vs an Acura MDX right now and an extremely
annoying thing is that I can’t easily rent one from the dealership to take on
a weekend trip and see how comfortable it is after a few hundred miles
driving.

~~~
perl4ever
Hertz Rent2Buy might be an option. They present it as an extended test drive,
where you get the fee waved if you buy the car, but they don't really care if
you don't. The price when you don't buy isn't ultra cheap, but as I recall you
don't get gouged on the nicer vehicles as much as with a regular rental, and
they have a fairly diverse selection.

But fundamentally, it's nice if you're shopping for a car because you get to
choose the make and model.

------
drx
This is great! I use Zipcar/Turo/Avis quite a bit since I don’t own a car.
Some notes:

* I would pay extra for unlimited mileage without worrying about overages. This is a major pain point for longer Zipcar trips to Tahoe or Oregon/Nevada

* The deductible is really high. Zipcar lets me pay extra for a $0 deductible.

* Mileage and deductible should be more visible, I had to go and read the actual terms. A small summary before booking might be good

* Mileage overage of $0.50/mile is pretty high considering I’m paying for gas

* UX nit, the calendar widget on the landing page requires me to scroll through a bunch of early morning AM times before getting to my time. The dropoff picker should default to the month of pickup as well.

I’m a big fan of your focus on minimizing hassle. The uber credit is clever!
I’ll definitely try you guys for my next trip.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Awesome feedback. Regarding mileage--the terms on the website are slightly
outdated and we don't have mileage limits--so none of that mileage overage
nonsense. We're also in the process of lowering the standard deductible $500
and adding a zero deductible option for an extra $10/day.

~~~
alexhutcheson
No mileage limits seems crazy. Won't dealers be upset if a car comes back from
a week-long rental with an extra 2,500 miles on it?

------
nodesocket
Interesting idea. I just suscribed to a manufacturer all-inclusive monthly
plan which includes insurance, registration, the right to swap cars and
unlimited miles. It is by no means cheap, but having month to month
flexibility as well as no lump sum of cash down like a lease or purchase was a
great option for me.

These prices seem insanely high though, maybe it's just I live in the south
but... $65 a day for a Ford Explorer? I have a luxury German car and pay $34 a
day, which again is not cheap.

I'll probably only end up doing my manufacture plan a couple of months, as
honestly I don't drive that much. Spending $300-400 a month in Uber is
actually eaiser and significantly less money.

~~~
closeparen
Manufacturers are fundamentally in the business of pushing _new_ cars. No
amount of financial engineering can make it a frugal option to drive a new
car.

~~~
nodesocket
I am not entirely sure if the program is run by the US manufacturing division
or local dealers. The car I got had 10,000 miles on it and is a 2019 model so
not brand new.

~~~
redindian75
Is it volvo? Didnt know it has unlimited and allowed frequent swaps.

~~~
nodesocket
Volvo is Swedish. :-). It is BMW. See
[https://go.accessbybmw.com/justink9917](https://go.accessbybmw.com/justink9917)

* Full disclosure, above is a referral link. Though I can provide a promo code to waive the activation fee.

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m_semeniuk
Hey Amos and Sam,

This is a great idea, and I don't think you need to make it a much cheaper
option in the long run for it to attract customers (understand the incentive
in the short term to acquire customers).

I live in SF, but travel to MSP a lot, and there is a local dealer that rents
their fleet out and I usually rent from them, because they're close to the
airport, they have a decent selection and the cars are well maintained. I
would consider testing other markets than SF/Oakland/LA, and focus on places
where people from those markets travel to (i.e. the midwest).

Excited to see what you accomplish!

~~~
amosgewirtz
Both Sam and I are from Minnesota so we'd love to expand to MSP at some point
:)

Our main focus right now is on people living in urban areas that don't own
cars rather than on travel, which is a much more price-competitive market.
That said, we're definitely not opposed to moving in that direction once we're
a bit larger!

------
abetheexplorer
Hi Amos & Sam this looks like a really cool concept. If I'm not mistaken
another challenge you guys may face is the fact that a lot of dealerships are
already doing this across entire brands such as Hyundai, how do you plan to
tackle that? Also are you guys using a vehicle API such as
[https://api.carsxe.com](https://api.carsxe.com) to vet cars and get detailed
data analytics on the cars people are renting out?

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ape4
Most downtowns (mine included) don't have car dealerships nearby. I have no
idea where the closest one is. I suppose I could take a Uber to a dealer less
downtown when I want to Carve.

~~~
amosgewirtz
All our cars are parked in valet lots downtown, so there's no need to go to
the dealership + we'll give you $20 in Uber credit to get to and from the lot.

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primitivesuave
Really nice checkout experience, I'm excited to try this out! I'm actually in
the market right now for an SUV, maybe car shoppers are a potential market to
reach out to (e.g. rent the car out cheaply for a week and let the salesperson
give their pitch when you go to give back the keys). I am sure there are a lot
of dealerships that would jump at that opportunity.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Thanks for giving us a try! Really looking forward to seeing what you think of
the service.

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sahaskatta
Hi Amos & Sam - Congrats on the launch. I'm one of the co-founder of
Smartcar.com. Have an email I can reach you at?

~~~
amosgewirtz
Hey! Shoot me an email at amos@drivecarve.com

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adamqureshi
fair.com did something similar and they call it subscriptions. They list
dealer inventory and you can "subscribe" to a vehicle. They raised something
like 1 billion from outside investors and just laid off 40% of staff. I do not
think you are competing with Hertz. My nephew just rents a zip car when he
needs a whip on the weekends. They are all over the city, he lives on the
upper east side. Turo is not allowed in NYC. The main problem in the city is
parking, accessibility and cost. Typically you only need a car on the weekends
thats IF you can afford it. Everything in the city expensive. If you can
target start ups in the city and the engineers that work there and bring them
the cars to them when they need them it could be an idea worth testing. So
many ways to slice the market on this.

~~~
johnny4000
Yes to bring the car too me! And pick it up too! This is a pain and a problem
worth solving (in that people would pay for this). I rented a car last weekend
to use on Saturday where I was leaving at 7am. I had to pick up the car Friday
because the rental place is closed at 7am Saturday and spend 20 min finding a
spot. Then had to spend another 15 min finding a spot on Saturday night, and
they were of course closed by the time I got back at 9pm. Then Sunday
returning the car I had to essentially park in the middle of the street
blocking a lane of traffic along with about 10 other rental cars waiting for
them to open at noon. At noon a rental employee comes out and starts yelling
and essentially tells you to leave the car in the middle of the street and
that you are good to go. I guess that was the good part.

Haven't tried Zip car. Too many NYC Zip car reviews of dirty cars left w/
empty pizza boxes etc and wouldn't want to be in such a small car in a highway
in upstate NY.

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snow_mac
$55 a day for a toyota corolla is absolutely insane. So expensive. I fly all
over and I'm a hertz gold member, I get my rentals for easily $10-30 a day.
Plus my name is always on the board when I arrive at Hertz, just get in, drive
away and sign a simple contract. I love Hertz

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masahiko
Really cool idea - this solves a business model innovation problem for
dealerships as well. I love the idea of being able to try for weekend BEFORE I
buy or lease. Good luck with this - as a UX person I'd be happy to provide
feedback on the app and service design.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Thanks! We'd absolutely love your feedback. Reach out to me directly at
amos@drivecarve.com when you have a minute!

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beefalo
Your site doesn't seem to say anything about being limited to SF on the main
page. I was a little confused at first having not read your last line about
being SF only and was trying to figure out how I could check if you were in
Denver for an upcoming trip.

~~~
amosgewirtz
On our landing page in the box where you enter your dates and times, it says
"Rent a car in San Francisco," but we'll add a banner to the top of the page
as well just to ensure people know we're only in SF for the time being!

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juskrey
Do you know anything about autoeurope.eu? I am renting there for years,
sometimes months in a row, and nothing and no one can compare with prices +
coverage. They somehow squeeze big players like Alamo and Hertz, providing
exceptional prices for their rentals

~~~
amosgewirtz
I've heard of them but haven't done much research. Will definitely check them
out!

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GhettoMaestro
I think you are on to something RE using dealership cars as high-end rentals.

I use DriveFlow, which is a Car as a Service. It is owned by a dealership
chain.

It is $1100/mo. I love it.

[https://www.driveflow.com/](https://www.driveflow.com/)

~~~
Loughla
>$1100/mo.

Holy crap, really? How much do you use it to justify that high of a cost? My
car, and this number is going down monthly because I paid for it in one lump
and it's getting older every month, only costs me $416/mo with maintenance and
fuel. I suppose it saves on storage, but I already had a place to store said
car, so that's not really an added cost?

Edited to reflect an accurate number after I realized I double entered
insurance in fuellog for a year.

~~~
GhettoMaestro
Yeah, so for $1100/mo I get:

\- Insurance (1K deductible)

\- Unlimited vehicle swaps

\- 1200 miles/mo

\- Each car comes freshly detailed and is usually under 3000 miles

\- Unlimited (local) roadside assistance swaps - eg if I get a flat tire they
will come swap me out into another car and I just drive away - this happened
to my wife and it was amazing to just grab and go

\- Allowed to put pets in the car (extra $100/mo)

As I have customers I drive around in-town frequently, I always need to have a
nice, modern, clean car on short notice. The cars so far have been BMW m240i,
Audi S3/S4, Audi Q5, Land Rover Discovery.

I feel it is worth the cost. My BMW lease before this was $700/mo. And then
add in insurance, detailing, maintenance (tires). It is about the same
honestly. I just have a lot more flexibility now.

Also it is a monthly operating expense, which makes the tax situation a lot
easier (versus lease/purchase and then reflecting that on taxes).

------
james_impliu
As an FYI, car rental in Europe is a million times worse than my experiences
in the US. I would be very motivated to try another way to do it. It is
totally normal to have a 1-2 hour wait in the UK or France at most airports,
for example.

~~~
mdibiase
This is unfortunately the case during peak season (i.e. Italy or Spain in
August). On the other hand, during off-season periods, the queue is often in
the realm of 15 mins.

The thing I've always found though is that off-season in EU is _way_ cheaper
than US. Went to Italy last month, 1 week for a medium sized car was something
like 100 euros. And it's not unusual to rent a car for ~6 euros per day.

------
conductr
> human-free pickup and drop

> arrive at the pickup location, show the attendant your reservation email

> drive back to lot and hand the keys to the attendant

Just pointing out this pitch inconsistency, love the idea and hope you guys
spread to other cities soon!

~~~
amosgewirtz
Oof, that's glaring. Thanks for the catch!

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muzika
As a used car dealer, I would love to participate in this.

UX tips: let user choose times later, initially show date options only. Also
show am option to select the city, to make it clear where this service is
available.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Let's definitely chat! Shoot me an email at amos@drivecarve.com

Re: the UX feedback--I'll let Sam know!

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berelig
I don't have any comments about the product but the background image on your
site is 5MB! Makes the page look like it's loading slowly even if below the
fold everything is ready to go.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Thanks for feedback! I'll get Sam to work on making load times way quicker.

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modwest
Doesn't this burden the dealership's service revenue? They have to pay to
maintain this fleet of rentals, which is going to be resource pressure for
their service departments.

~~~
amosgewirtz
Dealers do service their own cars, but we cover the costs. So if a car on the
platform requires an oil change, the dealer performs it but we pay.

~~~
modwest
I see. How do you plan on turning Carve customers into leads for the
dealership, to drive traditional car sales?

(disclaimer: I work in automotive, and very closely with dealers)

~~~
amosgewirtz
Definitely been thinking about this when it comes to getting new dealerships
to sign on with us.

One thing is leaving information about the car and the dealership in the
vehicle + providing dealer contact info in case the person wants to reach out
to the dealer. Do you have any other ideas?

~~~
modwest
Well this is, as far as I can tell, an intractable problem with automotive
because of the nature of the whole market, from OEMs to dealerships &
dealership groups to consumers.

Dealerships live and breathe leads. People renting cars definitely do not want
to be sales leads for dealerships. So I think this may be a pothole along your
way to the success I hope you achieve. :)

~~~
perl4ever
_When_ I want to buy a car, I want to drive the car, or a car like, the one
I'm interested in for an extended length of time before committing. A regular
test drive is way too short and although sometimes they let you take it by
yourself for longer, I feel like I'm imposing if I am not likely to buy it.

------
ycombonator
Great idea. Again utilizing the excess capacity. Couple of questions: 1\. How
are you financing uber vouchers ? 2\. Are they allowing cars to be rented
beyond certain mileage limit ?

~~~
amosgewirtz
1\. We have a business account with Uber and just pay them based on the number
of vouchers that are used.

2\. We don't put mileage limits on our cars, so dealers don't really have a
way of limiting mileage once the vehicles are on the platform.

------
polymath21
In most states dealership cars typically have dealer plates which only allow
them to be driven during test drives or by dealership employees. How do you
handle that?

~~~
amosgewirtz
We require that dealers tag and title the cars before giving them to us
(usually $200 which we reimburse).

~~~
muzika
Doing this would add an extra “owner” to carfax history, lowering the value of
the car. As a dealer this would be a huge deterrent to me.

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lancewiggs
I'd encourage you to think about what you are doing for climate crisis.
Nothing else really matters these days.

Is this business model helping or hindering emission reductions? Our climate,
history, and society will not treat you well if the latter.

Consider an EV-first approach, working only with dealerships who have EVs
(worst case PHEVs) to lease. That will help people decide to switch to EVs,
and you can be part of the solution, not the problem.

------
gnicholas
Where in SF do you serve? Literally just the city?

Are there mileage limits, since these cars are presumably sold as new/ish?

~~~
amosgewirtz
Right now all our lots are located in SF proper, and we provide $10 of Uber
credit each way to get there and back. We're working on ramping up operations
in Oakland right now though.

There aren't any mileage limits.

------
snoogol
Trying to book a car from mid dec-Jan, but it does not allow choosing a date
in 2020. Is that intentional?

~~~
amosgewirtz
Not intentional! Working to fix now.

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AdamN
Does this include delivery? That's the missing link I always notice with non-
airport car rental.

~~~
amosgewirtz
We don't currently offer delivery, but all our lots are downtown and we pay
for your Uber to and from the lot.

Delivery, especially at our size, turns out to be pretty expensive to do, so
we think it makes more sense in most cases to deliver the customer to the car,
not the other way around.

------
pdeva1
how does insurance work for the rental period? prices seem similar to hertz
and enterprise, why would i chose it above those?

~~~
amosgewirtz
Liability insurance and physical damage are covered, but there is a $2000
deductible.

As to why you'd choose us over Hertz, Enterprise, etc., the prices you're
seeing on our website include things like taxes and fees, so by and large
they're substantially lower than the big rental car companies for comparable
cars.

Convenience is also a big thing we've focused on. Our lots are all downtown,
as opposed to rental car company branches, who have a few lots downtown with
limited inventory but tend to do most of their business at airports. We also
pay $20 towards the Ubers to get you there and back again. Finally, since our
lots are valeted 24/7, all you have to do is show an attendant your
reservation email and the car is brought to you, which makes for super smooth
pickup and drop-off process.

~~~
zanderz
$2000, yikes! Will one's credit card insurance benefit apply here like with a
more classic rental to cover some of that?

~~~
amosgewirtz
If the credit card used to book the car offers what's called a "Car Rental
Collision Damage Waiver" then they'd cover the deductible for you.

We're currently renegotiating our insurance product, so hopefully we'll be
able to bring the deductible down to $500. We're also most likely going to
offer an add-on option to reduce the deductible to $0.

------
NonEUCitizen
Do you have plans to cover South Bay?

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MuffinFlavored
I feel like Turo will not like this?

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shoes_for_thee
Do you presently own cars?

~~~
amosgewirtz
No, all cars are dealer-owned.

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csteubs
Sounds like Skurt re-born.

~~~
amosgewirtz
I think Skurt worked with rental car companies to deliver vehicles to
customers whereas our cars come from dealerships and we don't deliver.

------
andtes007
Genius Idea! Not so catchy name "Carve" \- got to be more "Uber"

~~~
badrequest
I kinda like it, it's got the word "Car" in it. "I drove a Carve to get here"
sounds more natural than "I took an Uber"

~~~
amosgewirtz
Believe it or not, my co-founder and I actually ended up flipping a coin to
decide on the name! I wanted DrivesUs (mostly because the domain was
available) but now I feel like Carve sounds a little more sleek and pithy.

~~~
quickthrower2
DrivesUs would be a problem for me, because I'd keep forgetting whether it was
DriveUs or DrivesUs

