Airbnb Is Popular, but Renting Out Your Car Is Another Story
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Re: Airbnb Is Popular, but Renting Out Your Car Is Another Story
#2Different analysis: it's much more likely that a car can be damaged & completely unusable, leaving the owner in an expensive and inconvenient bind. We read about the occasional Airbnb horror story, but I think that scenario is relatively rare for property.
Second, idle cars have a lot of value to owners. The car in my garage right now is giving me optionality and convenience, and that is worth a lot. In fact, I may exercise that optionality after posting this comment!
Re: Airbnb Is Popular, but Renting Out Your Car Is Another Story
#3I can keep an eye on what's going on in my spare room. Can't keep an eye on the rented car as easily
Re: Airbnb Is Popular, but Renting Out Your Car Is Another Story
#4Different analysis: it's much more likely that a car can be damaged & completely unusable, leaving the owner in an expensive and inconvenient bind. We read about the occasional Airbnb horror story, but I think that scenario is relatively rare for property. Second, idle cars have a lot of value to owners. The car in my garage right now is giving me optionality and convenience, and that is worth a lot. In fact, I may e…
OTOH, one could argue that damage/theft/etc. to a home could involve much larger sums of money and be less easily resolved with a check from the middleman handling the rental--especially if it's not specifically a rental property.
Another issue with car sharing is that a fair bit of the depreciation is going to be mile-based rather than time-based. A "good" renter is going to put fairly minimal wear and tear on a bedroom. A good car renter is still going to put miles on a car.
Once you capture that cost and add it to your profit, it's unclear to me why you'd expect to be competitive with an outfit like Zipcar which is probably a generally better experience for the renter in any case.
Re: Airbnb Is Popular, but Renting Out Your Car Is Another Story
#5Curious about people's experience w/Turo. Seems like a good way to enhance a new car-buying experience.
Other than that, it seems weird from the car owner's perspective.
Re: Airbnb Is Popular, but Renting Out Your Car Is Another Story
#6Marketplaces are hard since the main thing you can sell is liquidity. If I were these car companies I'd focus in a benefit that helps users without requiring liquidity (single player mode) to bootstrap the marketplace.
Re: Airbnb Is Popular, but Renting Out Your Car Is Another Story
#7There are also more specialty car rentals like Vinty and RetroMotion.
Does anyone know how successful these companies are? What kind of volume do businesses like Turo see?
Re: Airbnb Is Popular, but Renting Out Your Car Is Another Story
#8Different analysis: it's much more likely that a car can be damaged & completely unusable, leaving the owner in an expensive and inconvenient bind. We read about the occasional Airbnb horror story, but I think that scenario is relatively rare for property. Second, idle cars have a lot of value to owners. The car in my garage right now is giving me optionality and convenience, and that is worth a lot. In fact, I may e…
OTOH, one could argue that damage/theft/etc. to a home could involve much larger sums of money and be less easily resolved with a check from the middleman handling the rental--especially if it's not specifically a rental property. Another issue with car sharing is that a fair bit of the depreciation is going to be mile-based rather than time-based. A "good" renter is going to put fairly minimal wear and tear on a bed…
Yeah, the stakes are higher, but it also seems much less likely that someone is going to unintentionally total your home.
Re: Airbnb Is Popular, but Renting Out Your Car Is Another Story
#9Different analysis: it's much more likely that a car can be damaged & completely unusable, leaving the owner in an expensive and inconvenient bind. We read about the occasional Airbnb horror story, but I think that scenario is relatively rare for property. Second, idle cars have a lot of value to owners. The car in my garage right now is giving me optionality and convenience, and that is worth a lot. In fact, I may e…
While the car damage may be an issue, a greater threat to the AirBnB model for cars is liability.
Already insurance companies and even leasing companies have special provisions (i.e., additional costs) for Uber/Lyft usage.
The possibility that you may be regularly giving another person control of your vehicle would likely be unsupported by default.
Re: Airbnb Is Popular, but Renting Out Your Car Is Another Story
#10Curious about people's experience w/Turo. Seems like a good way to enhance a new car-buying experience. Other than that, it seems weird from the car owner's perspective.
I wish they included all of the fees in their quoted prices. I wanted to rent quoted at $108, but it was $135 by time I got to checkout. Given the unknowns of renting a car from a private individual, and a similarly priced car being available from a rental car agency, I rented from the agency instead.