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Tesla wants to launch an in-house rental service
- jfengel 3y agoI suppose... because Teslas are unusually connected, so the interaction could be as easy as "Open the app, get in the car, drive away". No rental counter, no forms. Something along the lines of Zipcar, with some tweaks to the technology and business model. Presumably it's easier for Tesla to do that, since they've got unlimited access to the car software and data, than for some other company to do the same business model. I'm still not so sure it's a good idea for them. It's kind of aside from their core business, and there's a whole bunch of annoying overhead. (Keeping things clean, dealing with thefts and abuse, coping when dummies ignore the warnings about refueling, cars producing no revenue between rentals, etc.) It's retail-level stuff, and I wouldn't expect it to be profitable enough to manage the distraction. Still, they have access to the market info, and maybe they figure it's how to absorb a coming production surplus (which has led them to lower prices). (Another possibility is that it's a pilot for competing not with Zipcar but with Uber, when their self-driving actually works. That's... optimistic.)