9 ms·

BMW to Let Car Owners Rent Out Vehicles Like `Airbnb on Wheels'

36 points by fludlight 10y ago

netsharc 10y ago
https://en.drivy.com/ https://en.drivy.com/ is another "Like AirBnB, but for cars" I recently learnt about, which is available in some European countries. I like the idea, unlike AirBnB which eats up the rental market, there are too many cars not being used.
- radiorental 10y ago
  > there are too many cars not being used. What do you mean by this? Do you mean too much infrastructure dedicated to cars or inefficiencies in the average cars' usage?
  - mirimir 10y ago
    The latter, I think. I owned a car when I lived in Manhattan. Its rent was an appreciable percentage of mine. In retrospect, I should have sold it, and rented. But I was emotionally attached ;)
    - radiorental 10y ago
      Right, I see. I think that's a completely different issue, especially given where you lived. The idea that cars sit idle too much does not hold water. Cars age through usage, not over time.
mrdrozdov 10y ago
This already exists as GetAround and I used it all the time when I was in San Francisco. Similar pricing to ZipCar, but I found that there was typically better options/availability (YMMV). The other big plus was that I was able to get approved by GetAround within something like 24hrs, where ZipCar I had to wait to get my key delivered (~2 weeks) or pickup my key at their office (during business hours only). https://www.getaround.com/ https://www.getaround.com/
- blazespin 10y ago
  It's different when the manufacturers get behind it though. Cut out the middle man.
  - mrdrozdov 10y ago
    I suppose BMW would be the middle man? I have a hard time envisioning how a manufacturer provided service would be better than a neutral party since GetAround can provide the same service for all brands of cars. GetAround already provides a lot of useful features to participants such as remotely unlocking cars (that way you can keep your key inside for guests) and monitoring the location (primarily for the guest to find your car in the first place when it's inevitably parked randomly on the street).
- bduerst 10y ago
  Yep, and if anything, BMW is going to struggle because it's yet another asset sharing service. They'll likely get some BMW fans and aficionados, but given the small marketshare that BMW holds, most users are not going to use this as their go-to for getting a car.
  - r00fus 10y ago
    Could it turn out to be something similar to AirBnB where it starts out as niche and blossoms from there? Other thing - if you look at this service as a marketing channel to sell more BMW vehicles... then it doesn't really have to be a dominant service.
    - mrdrozdov 10y ago
      > if you look at this service as a marketing channel to sell more BMW vehicles... I think that's almost certainly what it is. Getting a BMW is a status symbol or a dream for many early drivers. There are lots of ways to get a beamer for cheap, certified pre-owned being a well known one. Maybe being an Uber driver is another way people have tried to finance their cool purchase, but this channel seems like a much more direct one.
rdl 10y ago
This could be the first "pimp your car out" service I'd consider using. If the manufacturer were behind it, on a leased car, and absolutely guaranteed any damage would be restored, plus compensated me enough to cover depreciation/lease mileage fee/etc., the only inconvenience would be "make sure your car is totally empty when you leave it parked". I tend to buy/keep cars ~forever, so it wouldn't work as well for me now, but if I could lease ~3-5 BMWs for ~20-30 people to share (at a remote company office or something which has a lot of people cycling through, and where some cars are needed), and then add them to a fleet pool otherwise, I'd be in. That's somewhere between Zipcar, Uber, and leased company cars. Managing maintenance, cleaning, insurance, repairs, etc. for them for me would be great, too.
- nmrm2 10y ago
  But at that point, what are you offering? (Genuinely curious. Capital? Taking on the risk? Insight/market research?) And is that worth the overhead that goes into your pocket? Sharing economy type stuff makes complete sense when it's something you share often enough to want first dibs, but not often enough that renting it out from time to time is an inconvenience. But if you're renting it out full time then I'm not sure I understand how the incentives line up. Seems like if they notice you're doing well they could just swoop in and under-cut you next time the contract is up.
  - rdl 10y ago
    Guaranteed demand, parking (there are legal issues where being an individual or first party business owner of vehicles is easier than being a ZipCar). You're leasing cars for ~$500/mo for 36mo each. That gets paid regardless of demand. If your stable gets used enough to bring in >$500/mo in external customer net revenue per car, that would be pretty exceptional. Most likely you'd make $100/car/mo and get a bit of extra professional maintenance for the fleet vs. just owning them and having a dealer service. What's interesting is if car manufacturers start to develop vehicles specifically for this kind of market. I'd love to have personalization settings (nav, seat, climate, driving controls, etc.) which follow me as a driver across a fleet of identical or related vehicles. You might also have a "valet mode" (some cars do now), "renter mode", and "owner mode", with different performance limits (I can ruin a $1-2k set of tires in 10k miles of spirited driving, but if I ran the right profile on the car, I could make them last 30k miles). Might also make some maintenance/safety things non-overrideable for renters -- you can't start the vehicle if the brakes/tires/fluids/etc. are not good, for insurance and vehicle-damage reasons.
csours 10y ago
The article seems to indicate that the non-owner drivers would not be the end users of the service, but would be Uber-like drivers. This is not a great article.
- pmontra 10y ago
  The last two paragraphs are about a Uber like service which is different from the main subject of the article. However if I want to get my car back to where I parked it and not on the other side of the city, the last user must drive it back or BMW will. The first option will make the service totally unappealing, worse than all those failed parking to parking car sharing services. The second one costs money to BMW. So maybe the only users of this service are Uber drivers. They get my car for some hours, make some profit out of it, park it where I left it, go get another one. The cost of the rental must be low enough for them to make a meaningful profit though.
blazespin 10y ago
Very courageous and visionary. BMW is canibalizing their sales as this will cut down on car wastage. Short term pain for long term positioning. This could be the tipping point as it forces other manufacturers to follow suit. Likely they are getting ready for self driving cars business model that come will come at a press of a button. I can see Tesla probably the next to do this. The world is a changin'.
- adventured 10y ago
  Or it'll enable BMW owners to make enough money on their rental car, to buy another separate car just for personal use, boosting BMW's overall sales and expanding their market reach.
  - blazespin 10y ago
    IF they had that kind of money, they'd just settle for the simplicity of one car.
maxxxxx 10y ago
That's pretty interesting. I remember some years ago there was car sharing service like Zipcar (do they still really exist?) where you could rent out your car and they would pay you for the miles driven. Not sure how that worked out.
- radiorental 10y ago
  Pretty well, http://www.zipcar.com/ http://www.zipcar.com/ was bought by Avis.
- praveenster 10y ago
  Zipcar was acquired by Avis for $500 million in 2013. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324374004578217121433322386 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873243740045782171...
walrus01 10y ago
Little known fact: The Germans in the BMW marketing department at first wanted to name the new "ReachNow" service in Seattle "ReachAround".
- Roritharr 10y ago
  Having a worked with BMW Marketing I instantly believe that.
  - walrus01 10y ago
    "I'll be there in 15 minutes but first Bob has to get me a reacharound"
- guard-of-terra 10y ago
  Hey, are Germans to blame that in English, everything you write is obscene by default?
UVB-76 10y ago
Such an unbelievable number of ways in which this could go wrong. Renters could mess up a vehicle in any number of ways, from making a mess with food and drink, to damaging parts of the interior, to getting in accidents and causing serious damage. Are owners expected to do a full damage assessment pre/post every rental? Nobody will accept any liability otherwise. That's overlooking any "drive it like you stole it" issues which can ruin the mechanicals. Think of all the nefarious activity a renter could get up to. Road rage incidents, motoring offences. Drug dealing or trafficking. Congratulations, your car is now on a watchlist. Imagine the disputes over how much gas is left in the vehicle. Let alone what type of gas a renter puts in there. There's no way any ordinary insurance policy would cover this kind of scheme. Your premiums can, and should, skyrocket. Then contemplate the practicalities of all this. A renter will have to pick the vehicle up from a location, then presumably return it to the exact same location. If that requires payment for parking, who pays? Don't get me wrong; I can't wait for the future where nobody owns a vehicle and we all travel in autonomous electrical vehicles that are efficiently utilized, monitored and cleaned automatically as needed. But this halfway house is a nightmare.
- gist 10y ago
  > There's no way any ordinary insurance policy would cover this kind of scheme. Your premiums can, and should, skyrocket. There is even another issue with accidents and luxury cars. [1] If you own a luxury car and it's in an accident the value drops pretty significantly vs. a non luxury car (where it still drops of course). With a rental apartment you have to worry about damage but not damage that would cause you to have a significant drop in the resale value. [1] Recognizing this test is starting with Mini of course however the idea from reading is they would expand to other parts of the brand.
- eveningcoffee 10y ago
  Don't get me wrong; I can't wait for the future where nobody owns a vehicle and we all travel in autonomous electrical vehicles that are efficiently utilized, monitored and cleaned automatically as needed. There is still at least one problem left - peak usage.
  - 10y ago
gist 10y ago
> ‘Never, ever will I lend my car to strangers.’ Then there’ll be others who’ll love the idea of halving their leasing rate.” For luxury cars it appears that it would tend toward "never ever". Having a luxury car isn't for practicality and you tend to feel very possessive about what you have and it possibly being damaged. Having it tarnished in some way lessens the joy of arbitrary non essential ownership. The idea that someone might have some heavy perfume or cologne or smoke in or near the car (however prohibited) would be enough to give many people pause. Also what if someone drove the car and by accident left some contraband in it?
victorhugo31337 10y ago
Who would think this is a good idea? Who thinks Airbnb is a good idea? Strangers leaving pubic hair all over your car and home--sounds great!
- nmrm2 10y ago
  Airbnb is great if you're out of town for a week to a month or more (for business travel, vacation, etc.). The $ you make more than covers a professional cleaning service for when you get back, which leaves the place cleaner than when you left.
Paul_S 10y ago
Most issues people cite are easy to solve by recording all car drive parameters and several cameras - inside and out. Combined with a reputation system this makes sure no one will wilfully abuse the car more than once (and even then they will pay for it).
noipv4 10y ago
Will there be a launch control disable when the vehicles are rented out?
chillacy 10y ago
I'm curious to see how this plays out (how much of the logistics will be handled by BMW vs outsourced?).. I also wonder if the stack fallacy could be coming into play here: http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/18/why-big-companies-keep-failing-the-stack-fallacy/ http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/18/why-big-companies-keep-fail...
DougN7 10y ago
BMW "let's" owners rent out cars that they _own_? Why do the owners need BMW's permission?
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  Most likely it's for vehicles financed through BMW, which has a financial interest in the vehicle and whose financing might otherwise not have a sub-lease / use for rental / whatever clause. Or maybe it's just the language of an "offering" - "a new service that lets Mini owners do x, y, z".
reiichiroh 10y ago
Isn't this what Turo (formerly RelayRides) is doing?

36 points by fludlight 10y ago

https://en.drivy.com/ https://en.drivy.com/ is another "Like AirBnB, but for cars" I recently learnt about, which is available in some European countries. I like the idea, unlike AirBnB which eats up the rental market, there are too many cars not being used.

radiorental 10y ago
> there are too many cars not being used. What do you mean by this? Do you mean too much infrastructure dedicated to cars or inefficiencies in the average cars' usage?
- mirimir 10y ago
  The latter, I think. I owned a car when I lived in Manhattan. Its rent was an appreciable percentage of mine. In retrospect, I should have sold it, and rented. But I was emotionally attached ;)
  - radiorental 10y ago
    Right, I see. I think that's a completely different issue, especially given where you lived. The idea that cars sit idle too much does not hold water. Cars age through usage, not over time.

mrdrozdov 10y ago

This already exists as GetAround and I used it all the time when I was in San Francisco. Similar pricing to ZipCar, but I found that there was typically better options/availability (YMMV). The other big plus was that I was able to get approved by GetAround within something like 24hrs, where ZipCar I had to wait to get my key delivered (~2 weeks) or pickup my key at their office (during business hours only). https://www.getaround.com/ https://www.getaround.com/

blazespin 10y ago
It's different when the manufacturers get behind it though. Cut out the middle man.
- mrdrozdov 10y ago
  I suppose BMW would be the middle man? I have a hard time envisioning how a manufacturer provided service would be better than a neutral party since GetAround can provide the same service for all brands of cars. GetAround already provides a lot of useful features to participants such as remotely unlocking cars (that way you can keep your key inside for guests) and monitoring the location (primarily for the guest to find your car in the first place when it's inevitably parked randomly on the street).
bduerst 10y ago
Yep, and if anything, BMW is going to struggle because it's yet another asset sharing service. They'll likely get some BMW fans and aficionados, but given the small marketshare that BMW holds, most users are not going to use this as their go-to for getting a car.
- r00fus 10y ago
  Could it turn out to be something similar to AirBnB where it starts out as niche and blossoms from there? Other thing - if you look at this service as a marketing channel to sell more BMW vehicles... then it doesn't really have to be a dominant service.
  - mrdrozdov 10y ago
    > if you look at this service as a marketing channel to sell more BMW vehicles... I think that's almost certainly what it is. Getting a BMW is a status symbol or a dream for many early drivers. There are lots of ways to get a beamer for cheap, certified pre-owned being a well known one. Maybe being an Uber driver is another way people have tried to finance their cool purchase, but this channel seems like a much more direct one.

rdl 10y ago

This could be the first "pimp your car out" service I'd consider using. If the manufacturer were behind it, on a leased car, and absolutely guaranteed any damage would be restored, plus compensated me enough to cover depreciation/lease mileage fee/etc., the only inconvenience would be "make sure your car is totally empty when you leave it parked". I tend to buy/keep cars ~forever, so it wouldn't work as well for me now, but if I could lease ~3-5 BMWs for ~20-30 people to share (at a remote company office or something which has a lot of people cycling through, and where some cars are needed), and then add them to a fleet pool otherwise, I'd be in. That's somewhere between Zipcar, Uber, and leased company cars. Managing maintenance, cleaning, insurance, repairs, etc. for them for me would be great, too.

nmrm2 10y ago
But at that point, what are you offering? (Genuinely curious. Capital? Taking on the risk? Insight/market research?) And is that worth the overhead that goes into your pocket? Sharing economy type stuff makes complete sense when it's something you share often enough to want first dibs, but not often enough that renting it out from time to time is an inconvenience. But if you're renting it out full time then I'm not sure I understand how the incentives line up. Seems like if they notice you're doing well they could just swoop in and under-cut you next time the contract is up.
- rdl 10y ago
  Guaranteed demand, parking (there are legal issues where being an individual or first party business owner of vehicles is easier than being a ZipCar). You're leasing cars for ~$500/mo for 36mo each. That gets paid regardless of demand. If your stable gets used enough to bring in >$500/mo in external customer net revenue per car, that would be pretty exceptional. Most likely you'd make $100/car/mo and get a bit of extra professional maintenance for the fleet vs. just owning them and having a dealer service. What's interesting is if car manufacturers start to develop vehicles specifically for this kind of market. I'd love to have personalization settings (nav, seat, climate, driving controls, etc.) which follow me as a driver across a fleet of identical or related vehicles. You might also have a "valet mode" (some cars do now), "renter mode", and "owner mode", with different performance limits (I can ruin a $1-2k set of tires in 10k miles of spirited driving, but if I ran the right profile on the car, I could make them last 30k miles). Might also make some maintenance/safety things non-overrideable for renters -- you can't start the vehicle if the brakes/tires/fluids/etc. are not good, for insurance and vehicle-damage reasons.

csours 10y ago

The article seems to indicate that the non-owner drivers would not be the end users of the service, but would be Uber-like drivers. This is not a great article.

pmontra 10y ago
The last two paragraphs are about a Uber like service which is different from the main subject of the article. However if I want to get my car back to where I parked it and not on the other side of the city, the last user must drive it back or BMW will. The first option will make the service totally unappealing, worse than all those failed parking to parking car sharing services. The second one costs money to BMW. So maybe the only users of this service are Uber drivers. They get my car for some hours, make some profit out of it, park it where I left it, go get another one. The cost of the rental must be low enough for them to make a meaningful profit though.

blazespin 10y ago

Very courageous and visionary. BMW is canibalizing their sales as this will cut down on car wastage. Short term pain for long term positioning. This could be the tipping point as it forces other manufacturers to follow suit. Likely they are getting ready for self driving cars business model that come will come at a press of a button. I can see Tesla probably the next to do this. The world is a changin'.

adventured 10y ago
Or it'll enable BMW owners to make enough money on their rental car, to buy another separate car just for personal use, boosting BMW's overall sales and expanding their market reach.
- blazespin 10y ago
  IF they had that kind of money, they'd just settle for the simplicity of one car.

maxxxxx 10y ago

That's pretty interesting. I remember some years ago there was car sharing service like Zipcar (do they still really exist?) where you could rent out your car and they would pay you for the miles driven. Not sure how that worked out.

radiorental 10y ago
Pretty well, http://www.zipcar.com/ http://www.zipcar.com/ was bought by Avis.
praveenster 10y ago
Zipcar was acquired by Avis for $500 million in 2013. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324374004578217121433322386 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873243740045782171...

walrus01 10y ago

Little known fact: The Germans in the BMW marketing department at first wanted to name the new "ReachNow" service in Seattle "ReachAround".

Roritharr 10y ago
Having a worked with BMW Marketing I instantly believe that.
- walrus01 10y ago
  "I'll be there in 15 minutes but first Bob has to get me a reacharound"
guard-of-terra 10y ago
Hey, are Germans to blame that in English, everything you write is obscene by default?

UVB-76 10y ago

Such an unbelievable number of ways in which this could go wrong. Renters could mess up a vehicle in any number of ways, from making a mess with food and drink, to damaging parts of the interior, to getting in accidents and causing serious damage. Are owners expected to do a full damage assessment pre/post every rental? Nobody will accept any liability otherwise. That's overlooking any "drive it like you stole it" issues which can ruin the mechanicals. Think of all the nefarious activity a renter could get up to. Road rage incidents, motoring offences. Drug dealing or trafficking. Congratulations, your car is now on a watchlist. Imagine the disputes over how much gas is left in the vehicle. Let alone what type of gas a renter puts in there. There's no way any ordinary insurance policy would cover this kind of scheme. Your premiums can, and should, skyrocket. Then contemplate the practicalities of all this. A renter will have to pick the vehicle up from a location, then presumably return it to the exact same location. If that requires payment for parking, who pays? Don't get me wrong; I can't wait for the future where nobody owns a vehicle and we all travel in autonomous electrical vehicles that are efficiently utilized, monitored and cleaned automatically as needed. But this halfway house is a nightmare.

gist 10y ago
> There's no way any ordinary insurance policy would cover this kind of scheme. Your premiums can, and should, skyrocket. There is even another issue with accidents and luxury cars. [1] If you own a luxury car and it's in an accident the value drops pretty significantly vs. a non luxury car (where it still drops of course). With a rental apartment you have to worry about damage but not damage that would cause you to have a significant drop in the resale value. [1] Recognizing this test is starting with Mini of course however the idea from reading is they would expand to other parts of the brand.
eveningcoffee 10y ago
Don't get me wrong; I can't wait for the future where nobody owns a vehicle and we all travel in autonomous electrical vehicles that are efficiently utilized, monitored and cleaned automatically as needed. There is still at least one problem left - peak usage.
- 10y ago

gist 10y ago

> ‘Never, ever will I lend my car to strangers.’ Then there’ll be others who’ll love the idea of halving their leasing rate.” For luxury cars it appears that it would tend toward "never ever". Having a luxury car isn't for practicality and you tend to feel very possessive about what you have and it possibly being damaged. Having it tarnished in some way lessens the joy of arbitrary non essential ownership. The idea that someone might have some heavy perfume or cologne or smoke in or near the car (however prohibited) would be enough to give many people pause. Also what if someone drove the car and by accident left some contraband in it?

victorhugo31337 10y ago

Who would think this is a good idea? Who thinks Airbnb is a good idea? Strangers leaving pubic hair all over your car and home--sounds great!

nmrm2 10y ago
Airbnb is great if you're out of town for a week to a month or more (for business travel, vacation, etc.). The $ you make more than covers a professional cleaning service for when you get back, which leaves the place cleaner than when you left.

Paul_S 10y ago

Most issues people cite are easy to solve by recording all car drive parameters and several cameras - inside and out. Combined with a reputation system this makes sure no one will wilfully abuse the car more than once (and even then they will pay for it).

noipv4 10y ago

Will there be a launch control disable when the vehicles are rented out?

chillacy 10y ago

I'm curious to see how this plays out (how much of the logistics will be handled by BMW vs outsourced?).. I also wonder if the stack fallacy could be coming into play here: http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/18/why-big-companies-keep-failing-the-stack-fallacy/ http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/18/why-big-companies-keep-fail...

DougN7 10y ago

BMW "let's" owners rent out cars that they _own_? Why do the owners need BMW's permission?

FireBeyond 10y ago
Most likely it's for vehicles financed through BMW, which has a financial interest in the vehicle and whose financing might otherwise not have a sub-lease / use for rental / whatever clause. Or maybe it's just the language of an "offering" - "a new service that lets Mini owners do x, y, z".

reiichiroh 10y ago

Isn't this what Turo (formerly RelayRides) is doing?