Business car owners of relationship with tenants

Several carpooling, including Getaround, RelayRides and JustShareIt companies, are seeking to connect the owners of car with the tenants in this way. Companies use different formulas, but the participants are, in General, about two-thirds of the proceeds of the lease. RelayRides said the owner of a medium, late-model sedan that renting a car for 10 hours by week could expect about $ 3,000 per year.

The hourly rate to rent a car, including insurance, on average from $ 6 to $ 8. Old cars can run as little as $3 time. Models can run many more high - said Getaround there of Tesla Roadsters ranging from $ 50 to $ 75 an hour.

Peer-to-peer sharing car still in the trial stage; It is found in San Francisco and a few other places. It has a long way to go before it becomes the equivalent car of Airbnb, success surprise of peer-to-peer sharing of space in apartments and houses.

Shelby Clark, founder of RelayRides, based in San Francisco, said in the business, investors were concerned that the owners will be afraid to submit their vehicle to unknown. He points out that answer, Airbnb, saying: "let people sleep in your living room is much more an intrusion into your personal space to let someone use your car.."

All these companies offer their own insurance for tenants, which is supposed to put the spirit of the owners at ease. But only two States, California and Oregon - adopted laws to clarify that an owner will not suffer impacts carpool tenant should have an accident, says Robert c. Passmore, Senior Director of policy of personal lines Property Casualty insurers Association of America.

"In all other States, legal ambiguity remains," he said. "If a tenant must be involved in a serious accident in these States, the victim can if wait go after each use, including the owner of the car."

Also to appease the concerns of car owners, the driving records of tenants are checked for recent violations.

Getaround makes it easy start: participants use their log-ins to Facebook, and owners can control who rents their cars.

"We have seen many owners get right up at the first lease and hesitates, as if standing at the edge of a cliff," said Sam Zaid, Director General of the company "we want people to be able to start slowly, perhaps rent just for the friends of friends and requiring not any technology.". The owner personally presents the keys for the tenant - a big disadvantage, if the owner does not care meet each tenant, each time - and tenants pay for gas.

RelayRides installs equipment in each car to control the door locks. A smart card reader is mounted behind the windshield, and the tenant presses the map against the glass to enter. Ignition keys are suspended by inflammation, so the car can be rented several times without disturbing the owner. Gasoline is currently included in rental fee, but the company said tenants will pay for it in the future.

RelayRides equipment includes also a GPS receiver and a cell connection, so the company always knows the location of the car, and a distance off the coast of the switch that prevents the car theft.

Equipment costs RelayRides about $500, and the company installs for free. Mr. Clark looks forward to not having to install it in the future. RelayRides has announced a partnership with the division of General Motors OnStar system, allowing the tenants to find, book and unblock the G.M. cars with their cell phones via an OnStar system factory-installed.

JustShareIt, which began in January, requires equipment such as RelayRides, most of the cars and offers a few other features of control of the safety of the tenants, as a sensor to detect sudden braking or signs of towing.

JustShareIt, owners pay $249 for the installation of the necessary equipment for most of the cars, and the monthly fee of $2.99 for the service of bare-bones which locks and unlocks the car. Owners and tenants can pay Optional fees for services and additional reports.

Getaround said it has 536 active cars in San Francisco and San Diego and 80 users beta in Portland, Oregon RelayRides has 200 cars in San Francisco and Boston, and the newly opened JustShareIt has 60 cars and four motorcycles in the San Francisco Bay area.

ZIPCAR, a business version of car which started in 2000, has a start to the race. It offers collection locations very dispersed to people who want to rent a car by the hour or the day. The company has more than 9,000 vehicles in the United States, the Canada and Great Britain; many are on or near University campuses. But the Zipcars are the property of the company, not by you or your neighbors. The company gets new vehicles to be leased, like Hertz and notice.

New business say peer-to-peer sharing is a more ecological because it allows an existing car use more fully. Of course, a car has a life of so many miles only. Carpool, which causes the more kilometres to be clocked, necessarily accelerates the day where a vehicle must be replaced.

New companies also emphasize how they transform an otherwise impersonal staff operation. "We want to remind the tenant that the car does not belong to Hertz, but to a person," says Clark, Shelby to the RelayRides. "When a tenant makes a reservation, they see a photo of the owner and the list is"Of Shelby Mini."" ”

Carpooling is a form of "consumption collaborative", the awkward slogan which encompasses Airbnb of sharing space and is commonly used to suggest an ideological imperative or moral share more things. Who knows? In the future, carpooling can be accepted so that we can eventually return to this bygone era where licence actually outnumbered the authorized vehicles.

Randall Stross is an author based in Silicon Valley and Professor of business at San Jose State University. E-mail: stross@nytimes.com.

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