For many of us, owning a car has been an indispensable part of our lives. But in the future, we may not need to own our own car at all. Or perhaps we’ll own a collectable or classic car, and simply access modern cars for everyday transport from A to B.
Hyundai Motor Company today announced a new collaboration with Car Next Door, one of Australia’s leading car sharing companies, to utilise a new version of Hyundai’s Auto Link phone app (currently in development) to list their cars for rent when they aren’t being used, much like Airbnb does with homes.
The inbuilt link is connected to smart phones, which will allow Hyundai drivers to seamlessly and conveniently rent their vehicles by the hour or day to vetted members of Car Next Door’s peer-to-peer car sharing community. It will allow them to access and drive other Car Next Door-registered vehicles by using their phones, rather than a traditional key.
Hyundai’s Auto Link is currently available on the new i30 hatch, Kona SUV and will soon be offered on the new Santa Fe and Ioniq.
“By the end of 2019, Australians will be able to buy a Hyundai car with the built-in ability to seamlessly and easily rent it out and earn extra money,” said Hyundai CEO Scott Grant.
Car Next Door CEO and co-founder Will Davies added, “You can have a car when you need one, but when you’re not using it, the vehicle is out there making you money. Owners can factor this into their regular repayments.”
It is estimated that listing a medium-sized car for rent on Car Next Door is just over $3000 a year and van owners can reap $7500 and upwards.
It sounds like a great idea, but seniordriveraus was concerned about the many implications such as ownership, security, liability and even tax issues, so we talked to Bill Thomas, Hyundai’s genial PR director. He answered the potential security issue by explaining that special encryption technology is built into the sim in the Auto Link dongle within the car so it only recognises one phone (that of the renter).
As to the important issue of insurance, when an owner joins the network, their comprehensive insurance is replaced with Car Next Door fleet insurance. Apparently, damage is rare – only 1 percent of all bookings incur any sort of damage and if a car is damaged, Car Next Door sorts it all out, including arranging for pick-up, taken for repairs and delivered back to the owner.
Finally, on the matter of tax, like other share economy businesses, the car owner is required to declare earnings as taxable income.
Follow this link to see how it works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTrXOQoRuWI
We’d be interested to hear your feedback. Would you trust your car to an unknown borrower?