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Social Car:
Collaboration to match car rental supply and demand Social Car is a pioneering initiative in Spain that lets car owners rent out their automobiles for a limited time to people who temporarily need a car. This enables the owners to save in maintenance costs and environmental impact, while letting the renters have access to an automobile at a reasonable price. Social Car was inspired by the CouchSurfing social network, in which individuals host visitors that need a place to stay, by offering them a free room or at least a sofa to sleep on. However, unlike Couch Surfing, Social Car is a paid service, allowing car owners to obtain extra income for a few hours, days or weeks at a time, and providing renters with access to a car close to home and under more flexible conditions than those of traditional car rental agencies. There are similar businesses in the USA, such as GetAround. Owners and renters register for free online, and Social Car handles the rest: the service, payment and insurance. In addition to its profits and the environmental benefits that stem from sharing a single car, the business has other advantages: Social Car dedicates 0.7% of its income to charity work in Spain. In fact, users can choose the cause to which they would like to contribute, and can even suggest charities. According to Mar Alarcón, co-founder and General Manager of Social Car, the idea was born in summer
2010, and took 1 year to come to fruition. Users were able to register starting in July 2011, and by September of that year, the company already had 300 registered car owners and 1,000 registered drivers. Among Social Car’s objectives is to offer a car rental service as close to the driver as possible: ideally, owner and drive would live near each other, such that the service would foster a sense of community. Initially, the biggest challenge for the company was insurance, so it signed an accord with the insurance provider Globalis to create a custom policy that provides total coverage for owners and drivers, yet costs the same as standard policies prices. Social Car can be very useful in large cities as well as in small towns, where public transport may not meet users’ needs. In addition to private owners, companies with vehicle fleets can also rent out their automobiles—for example, on weekends. The service embodies a collaborative effort to match supply with demand. Indeed, sharing of goods is becoming increasingly popular: soon people may be sharing expensive equipment that is only required occasionally, such as sports bikes, skis, cameras, etc.
More information www.socialcar.com
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