How is this "sharing?" This seems like app-based short term rentals little different from what I could get from Avis and the like.
My initial thought was that this was allowing individuals to rent out their cars and my reaction was a hard 'oh hell no.' What's the term from the various "my expensive camera /lens was stolen" stories? Voluntary parting? Pretty sure that would apply to your nice car as well.
I still can't wrap my head around it why car rental companies like Hertz and Avis don't have this market completely cornered. They have the infrastructure, the assets, the know-how. Why is it still so inconvenient to get a car through them ?
In the UK, those companies all require a driving license, passport, credit card, many thousand pound deposit, credit check, 2 bank statements, and a code from the government showing driving offenses...
They then proceed to print off paper forms which they staple other forms to, scan them in, print them off again, fax them to the headquarters before emailing them as well, and print them out a third time just for luck, before finally handing out the keys to the car.
Either the whole industry is unreasonably scared of theft, or theft is an actual problem and they need to do everything that can to keep it low to stay profitable.
I can see why they haven't moved to app-based rentals. It's hard to fax handwritten sketches of your ID card via an app...
Then they only do these things when they're open (although you can return cars at all times), so too early, too late or Sundays are out.
They also only have one location in the city where you can get cars, and it's usually much further away than the closest car sharing option.
For longer trips (and one-way rentals which are great for moving city) they are still a good option, but if you need a car for an hour to get some heavy tools from the hardware store they're out.
(The other option would be to borrow a cargo bike which is free from the city, but again only when they're open and requires more travel to and from the place.)
> In the UK, those companies all require a driving license, passport, credit card, many thousand pound deposit, credit check, 2 bank statements, and a code from the government showing driving offenses...
That may just be you. It is most certainly not the case in the US.
Because their upside is in profitable up-sells like extra insurance and additional drivers, and their downside is fraudulent rentals and renters returning damaged vehicles.
Having face-to-face interactions with renters is surprisingly effective both at maximising upside and minimising downside.
Car2go started out as a joint venture of Daimler and the car rental company Europcar. Nowadays it is a joint venture only of car makers Daimler and BMW.
I actually wonder how profitable these very short term rentals are on their own. Maybe part of their profitability is long term brand development? Certainly city dwellers like me, who gets by with bicycles and public transport mainly, are exposed much more easily to the experience of driving a nice, modern BMW or Mercedes than they would without these "car sharing" offers.
Are they that hard to use? Last time I used Avis, I did the reservation on my phone, went to pick the car up, which consisted of signing some papers and then taking any car I wanted from a certain section of the parking garage.
Enterprise is just as easy and they'll even bring me the car.
Last time I rented from Avis I didn't even sign paperwork. I made the reservation, then changed it from the app on my phone in the airport before my flight. After I arrived, I went to the rental area, the app directed me to a car. I got in, and drove to the exit where I handed my driver license to an attendant who returned it with a receipt within 30 seconds and opened the gate allowing me egress. I was very pleasantly surprised at how improved the customer experience was.
It's not sharing, but the term sort of makes sense because they're competing with the actual sharing companies like uber more than they're competing with rental companies.
You can rent a car2go for an hour to do a big grocery run, that's not economical or practical with avis.
The premise I think is that you're "sharing" the ownership of the car with your neighbors and fellow users. So instead of a model where each person owns their own car, these cars are "shared" between various drivers.
Presumably there's an implied distinction between this model, where people share ownership of their primary car, and the typical rental car model, where people are presumed to be traveling or otherwise renting the car to supplement their existing car ownership.
Not saying it's some brilliant insight, but there is an internal logic to the use of the term.
My initial thought was that this was allowing individuals to rent out their cars and my reaction was a hard 'oh hell no.' What's the term from the various "my expensive camera /lens was stolen" stories? Voluntary parting? Pretty sure that would apply to your nice car as well.