In recent years automakers have discovered that Millenials are not as interested in car ownership as previous generations. With car-loving Boomers and Gen-X'ers only getting older, the writing is on the wall.
In an attempt to boost sales, Ford is launching, in six urban areas, a rather strange take on car sharing. The idea is that Ford owners that are registered with Ford Motor Credit (the company's financing arm) will be able to rent their own cars out to strangers by the hour, all facilitated by an app and a car-share startup called Getaround. It's something like AirBNB for cars.
I call the plan strange for three reasons: First, because for the end user—and I mean the ultimate end user who is renting the car, not the penultimate end user who is allowing their car to be rented out—the program doesn't seem to offer any advantage over Zipcar, the dominant car sharing service. Thus Ford's offering seems to have a me-too air about it without offering any real innovation, or incentive to switch, to the ultimate end user.
Secondly, I question whether a car owner would be willing to rent their own car out to a stranger. Some of you will say that if folks are willing to rent their apartments out to strangers on AirBNB, why not? Because during the normal course of operation, cars are subjected to more immediate wear-and-tear both inside and out and, of course, potentially catastrophic accidents. AirBNB has weathered their share of anomalous horror stories, but I think that in today's litigious society, it will take just one well-publicized DUI-related fatality before car owners re-think handing their keys away.
Thirdly, I always assumed that folks in urban areas who needed a car but couldn't afford one would sign up with, again, ZipCar. If the Ford renters are to match their rates, the hourly profit for Ford owners sharing their cars would not seem to add up to a significant amount.
Lastly, you should take my opinion with a grain of salt; you're talking to a guy who was confident the first iPod Mini would be a flop. (It was a tremendous sales success, for those of you that can remember back that far.)
I'm most curious to hear from the car owners among you, as I sold mine long ago and am no longer in your tribe. Whether or not you have a Ford, would you be willing to rent your car out on an hourly basis to strangers, for rates roughly competitive ($12 to $15 per hour) to Zipcar's?
Also, fellow Zipcar users: Are the cars you get clean? Here in NYC, I'd say four out of five times I use a Zipcar, they're reasonably clean. But one out of five times I find at least one of the following:
- Garbage (candy bar wrappers, empty coffee cups, half-drank water bottles, etc.)
- Food crumbs or food stains on seat or dashboard
- Strong cologne or perfume smell
- Cigarette ashes
- The plastic clips drilled into the dashboard to hold the external audio cable have been forcibly ripped out, and the cable is missing
- Sticky or oily buttons, controls or steering wheel
Is it just New York, or have you found this in your Zipcar city as well?
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Comments
Not that strange. Whipcar in the UK did this for a while, although they closed down in the end: https://worldstreets.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/10704/
All I know is that using ZipCar was always a hassle, and working as cleaning boy for a car rental place in high school is not among my fondest memories.
Owning a car that others could potentially use, wreck, get tickets or rack up unpaid toll bills with: unless Ford is going to front-end all of those logistics so the owner never even notices the car is missing or different, I'd pass with vigor. Others may like the ability to get what amounts to subsidies on owning a ride, but how much do you really own it at that point?
There are a lot of car-sharing service options that will be great: when we have self-driving cars. Cars that act like massive fluid fleets of on-demand ubers, that pick you up at the touch of a button and bring you anywhere from 4 blocks away to get to work in the morning, to the other side of the country; all at low monthly rates.
Until then, when you have to go get the vehicles and drive them yourself and worry about maintaining a schedule, it's all just a niche market.
No reason this shouldn’t work - there are really three distincy car-sharing spaces: Taxi competitors (Sidecar, Lyft, Uber); Rental competitors (CityCarShare, ZipCar); and personal rentals (GetAround, Relay Rides) and all have their purposes. I’ve used most of them, and last time I checked, ZipCar’s rates were significantly higher than GetAround, as they had to be since they had to cover the average cost of car-ownership, rather than cover the marginal cost of car-using. for the person with a car sitting idle while they are at work or the 2-car owning family that rarely needs both GetAround offers a great solution to help cover the costs, and the experience worked well for me each time I used it.
It's an interesting take. Would Ford owners have to park their cars in an easily accessible place for renters to get? You know, Zip Car has stations. Or would strangers come to your home, knock on your door and ask for the keys. On the other hand, if this works, could it work for non-Ford cars? My car is parked outside my work right now, doing nothing. I wouldn't mind earning some cash, although it might be hard to keep my car clean enough to rent. ;-)