Rental Car Shortage
 

I'm sure a lot of you have seen mention of rental car shortages in the news. I did my first business trip in 16 months and when I arrived at the Charlotte airport things have definitely changed. Where there would normally be 80-100 cars to chose from there were about 20. Options were basically: Full size SUV, Minivans, Nissan Versa. I ended up with this:

2020 GMC Denali XL. Not quite a UHaul truck but pretty close. I am impressed with the mileage so far. 18 mpg in mixed driving. (average speed 29 mph)

Attachment 30922

Aha!! You rented what I consider a hearse. Thanks for the find/clarification

I'll be downtown this morning, I can ask how many rentals they have. Last time I was there, they were stockpiling about 50 FUV for delivery.

They might rent some at PDX. I had a supplier in last week. He ended up using Uber because he couldn't book a rental.

A coworker from another location come in the week before that. He ended up flying to Seattle and driving to Portland so he could get a rental car.

I can't see renting for $100 a day though. Our rate is $240 a week for a Midsize which I can upgrade to anything on the lot with very few exceptions. For example Charlette did have a BMW 3-series is their premium area. In normal times I could take that car. This time the attendant wouldn't let me have it so I took a $75K SUV instead. I can't see the logic but I guess a $40K BMW is more "Premium" than a $75K GMC.

I got distracted and didn't stop at Arcimoto. So I called and asked. Their rental fleet is 12 total, with 0-7 available on any given day of the week. $16/hour, IDK about daily rates.

It wouldn't actually surprise me if a shortage on cheaper rentals there could actually be a deliberate measure from rental companies. Unless many Uber drivers there also rent a car to work as it's been quite common in my country.

Yeah I have driven by the enterprise here several times in the last week and no cars at all.

Check out Turo. More interesting vehicles if nothing else.

I know about Turo. My company reimburses rental cars booked with National Rental Car through the Corporate Travel Portal. That is how they get rates like $240 a week. Book outside of that and you pay out of pocket.

Cheapest car on Turo in Charlotte, NC is $61 a day for a Nissan Versa.

I also doubt too many private individuals are going to let me pick up a car at 1 am and drop it off at 4 am.

What's wrong with the "official" explanation? Working the night shift here in reno for Budget/hertz, we were constantly loading older cars on and new fresh cars off haulers as they became qualified for replacement.

Delta: no need for cars during plandemic, so none are in stock. JIT planning doesn't normally deal with oddities well particularly on long lead items.

I heard on the radio today that Airbnb will start to offer car rentals too.

I'd love to rent the slack time on expensive items I own.

My 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, 5th... vehicles are hardly used when I work from home. Heck, my wife takes my company issued car to work daily.

One of my million dollar ideas was to rent your car when you go to the airport to travel. Instead of paying insane amounts of money to temporarily occupy a small patch of asphalt while traveling, you rent the car out and make money. If you need a car at the destination, you rent someone else's car that they took to the airport. This would vastly reduce the parking requirements, and turn a liability into an asset.

Are you going to be there on February twenty-second? Arcimoto is going to have an event.

Before they got onto the robovalet concept, they said you'd be able to have your friends unlock your FUV with their smart phone and use it when you have it on release.

Whether they will even sell to end users is the question today.

[ $FUV ] #Arcimoto's Rental Business Opportunity - Updated Spreadsheet!

Can't come up with a plausibly useful company reason to be there during the week, but I wish I could.

I've given friends and family 24/7 access to the front door lock via phone app. Something similar seems reasonable for a car.

How do you deal with the jerks that just want to trash your stuff? I used to argue with my boss all the time about insurance, but they don't compensate you for your inconvenience.

Life's a gamble.

The genius of Ebay was introducing mutual ratings. A menace would only be a menace so long.

I expect the small service fee paid to the app creator would also cover insurance claims, similar to how Uber compensates drivers when a fare damages their vehicle.

The bigger risk is what if someone get's hurt using your vehicle. At least with physical damage to your vehicle your loss is limited to the value of the vehicle. Liability for medical injuries could be millions.

I'm an EagleRider member (motorcycle rental company) and about a year ago the introduced EagleShare to allow private individuals to rent their motorcycles to others. When it first launched the insurance terms for owners were unknown - lots of info for renters but nothing for owners. I checked today and now they provide $1 million in liability coverage to owners. That is more than the $300K offered by Riders Share but not enough to entice me to rent out my motorcycle. I would hate to lose everything trying to make $100 renting my motorcycle to a stranger

There is also squishy wording on owner responsibilities to provide a "safe" vehicle to the renter.

Was just trying to keep it relatBle on a personal level.

Even if someone who would put a private vehicle available for rent with full insurance coverage, the attorneys of insurance companies could be actually worse than the ambulance-chaser hired by someone who had an accident with such rental vehicle...

The same way you deal with people who want to steal elec... do that. If redpoint5 let's friends and family inside the door, word will get around. Reminds me, it's time to change up my signature line.

Slap them on the wrist and say:" Don't do that"? For my alternate method, I need more stuff. Truckloads more of nitrate enhanced stuff