Your car spends a lot of time parked, why not rent it and get some revenue from it? The fact remains that you should remain very careful, these sorts of transactions don’t always happen as planned.
The evolution of private car rental
Still anecdotal at the beginning of the decade, car rental between individuals has grown rapidly, and while professional rental companies still claim more than 95% of the market, private car hire between individuals has become an integral part in our daily habits and keeps setting several revolutions in the car rental realm. The first one is that of the collaborative economy: users come into contact with each other without having to go through a professional. The benefits are many, but the risks are not insignificant.
Commercial and technological innovation
Car rental has always involved a constraint: the presence of a person to do the inventory and give you the keys (and recover them at the end of the rental). What does not pose a problem for a professional renter becomes a constraint for an individual who wants to rent his car while being in the office or on vacation. If the physical delivery of keys is still common, companies in the field have developed innovative alternatives like a connected box installed in the vehicle which can open it with a simple badge and/or a Smartphone while the keys remain inside. Rent a car at
getaround.com and see for yourself an example of the innovative work being put together on a daily basis!
Constructers do have their fair share as well!
It has been several years since auto constructor groups ceased to be just car manufacturers. In addition to financing, insurance or short-term leasing, they have recently been interested in new car uses, including rental between individuals. Thus some of them even went to join forces with car insurance companies and invest millions of pounds in young P2P car rental agencies. It’s inevitably a big benefit for any start-up in the field with considerable resources to develop and sustain its activity. These manufacturers groups aim at putting a foot in the mobility of tomorrow, which will probably be based more on use than on purchase. This is obviously happening in addition to a service that’s already acquired for the majority of manufacturers: the short-term rental, which competes with traditional rental companies with often commercially aggressive offers in networks like those of Peugeot, Citroen, Renault, Opel, Hyundai, Volkswagen etc.