New Australian Car experience sharing platform

[mbedford]

Hi all,

I'll start by saying this is an idea sharing exercise completely for feedback and this is not a sales post. Ok, with that out of the way.

I've been in the Australian sports car owning community for many years, 15 I guess, and been around the car clubs and forums a lot in that time. For a long while I've been thinking, 'I wish there was a safe and controlled way to share the experience of what my car is like to drive, and also be able to borrow a friend/fellow car club or forums car, again in a safe and controlled easy way'.

I had this idea and finally put some research time in along with a fellow car fan, into what was possible using our IT backgrounds and love of cars.

So an idea (and that's all it is at this stage) was born.

Like with all ideas, you need to socialise it for feedback, what are the negatives? is this even a good idea at all?

This is where we would really value you, the fellow petrol-head car forum member for your valued input.

Once again this is not a sales tactic, we're just looking for honest (don't sugar coat it) feedback.

We've setup a quick website to just explain the What, Why, How here: http://www.beddysblog.com/carexpsharing/
What do you think? just reply,

[9er]

I can see why this concept would appeal to some, but it would not suit me.

For me it's all about the individuality and the sacrifice (yeah dramatic I know).

 

[LeeM]

 Too many 'What ifs' for me to be comfortable allowing a random stranger to take my car away on a joy ride/thrash. "Heres the keys to my Porlamborarri, off ya go"...Haha, cheers mate...SEEYA! 

 If you're wanting my opinion without sugar coating it (and I'm probably wrong), but this just sounds like an elaborate scam to fleece people of their cars

[spiller]

Isn’t there already a platform like this that was started a few years ago?

[tomo]

There's a similer type of thing already going (or it was) You pay something like $15000 a year and allows you drive a varity of super cars at your lesure , They used to advertize the UK version in a certain 911 mag , 

[Dreamr]

Just my .02c worth ...

I have enough issues letting people I know drive my cars ... they aren't overly expensive ones but if someone does something to it either by accident or by being a d**khead, I know it will be an expensive fix.

There is no way I'd enter into something like this. I am fully versed in how people treat hire cars and this really wouldn't be much different ...

"It's not mine, so who cares" ... 

[Dalai]

I happily hand my keys to friends as I like to share the experience with others who may otherwise not get the chance. But so far have always been in the passenger seat. 

As suggested by others, no chance I'd consider letting others who I don't know plus not be in the passenger seat! Hire car mentality of driving it like you stole it comes to mind!

[smit2100]

2 hours ago, Dalai said:

I happily hand my keys to friends as I like to share the experience with others who may otherwise not get the chance. But so far have always been in the passenger seat. 

As suggested by others, no chance I'd consider letting others who I don't know plus not be in the passenger seat! Hire car mentality of driving it like you stole it comes to mind!

I've also be charitable in handed my keys over to forum members that I haven't met before for a spin around the block.  Amount of skin in the game on that model doesnt work for me

 

E.g. someone not too familiar with driving a manual / fries my clutch off the line.  Whats the compensation, deducted notional points increased points..  On the flip side, driver says your clutch was screwed when I got in it.  They say, we say.

May have the IT side covered, but not the $. Cash is king.

Off the top of my head, if you take the concept, like a listed body corporate for housing units and dollars are pooled into akin to a  managed investment trusts,  you then have a body corporate manager that.organises insurance , servicing , maintenance  rego for say 10 cars ( 996gt3, v10 audi r8 ( manual 2012) 997 gt3, 930 turbo, f80 m3, 911 sc, audi rs6 , gt4, alpha quadrafoglio, 911 carerra ( 991). Annual sub fees are paid yearly ( body Corp fees to cover annual running costs). Instead of laying out 150k on your 996/ 997 gt3, you buy a share of a portfolio of 10 cars.    Basically car usage is on a roster on a weekly predefined roster ( afl 10 round fixture) and ability for individual unit holders to swap cars if mutually agreed.   value of cars are assessed say quarterly ( statement what the shareholding is worth if if someone wants to try and sell there share.    Basically have a userpay hoon clause if something is not normal wear and tear.  Accidents under a global policy on 10 cars means idiot operator driving the car pays the excess in case of incident and a resale penalty.  All cars are to be returned back to base by say midnight Sunday unless agreed otherwise between shareholders.  So could garage and drive 10 different Cars in under 3  months each year  for the next 10 years or 4 smts in a year with a different p car each time. .  Unit holders at and AGM could decide to offload a car and replace it with something else.  

Bit more skin in the game.

Ideally the unit would build a 24/7 access industrial portal frame factory ( with at least one hoist and  man cave facilities)  to store the cars and that's an extra mandatory kick in.  Could make that tax advantageous eg ( separate share in the building)  and that group rents it to the unit trust group.

 So to the ministers of finance  your investing in high cost realestate (  bugger all rental return   and the building is fitted out with track and sports cars that are not permanent fixtures that magically appear in your own garage from time to time

[sleazius]

I love it... i don’t know about a manual 2012 v10 R8 though... only 3 delivered supposedly. One was for sale just before Christmas, should have pulled the trigger but timing was wrong.

[smit2100]

2 hours ago, sleazius said:

I love it... i don’t know about a manual 2012 v10 R8 though... only 3 delivered supposedly. One was for sale just before Christmas, should have pulled the trigger but timing was wrong.

Nah, thats the ace in the pack.  Eg potential appreciation on that may offset a portion of deprwciation on the others.  Was it a WOVR for 140k in white.  ?  Yes  timing wrong  indeed on that one but not sure was 2012).  Spoke to a guy that picked one up after looking for 2 years ( manual) who paid retail against the 140k  and drove it back from Sydney to Perth grinning all the way whilst adding 5000 plus on the odometer in less than a week.

[Dalai]

4 hours ago, smit2100 said:

I've also be charitable in handed my keys over to forum members that I haven't met before for a spin around the block.  Amount of skin in the game on that model doesnt work for me

Kindly offered to me too. Kicking myself now I didn't accept the opportunity, but wasn't comfortable getting in your car knowing the mods and extra HP!

[smit2100]

Just now, Dalai said:

Kindly offered to me too. Kicking myself now I didn't accept the opportunity, but wasn't comfortable getting in your car knowing the mods and extra HP!

If you can steer an aircooled its surprisingly very  easy to drive, its just but throttle is  more responsive .  If I was in the passenger seat I would encourage you when to change gear along  with some further  encouragement to keep the the foot down if it did get slightly out of kilter in the rear end.

If ever in  Perth down the track,  drop me a line.  Happy to throw the keys over.    By then it should be a bit more planted behind the wheel than it currently is along with being  better at pulling up. 

[sleazius]

1 hour ago, smit2100 said:

Nah, thats the ace in the pack.  Eg potential appreciation on that may offset a portion of deprwciation on the others.  Was it a WOVR for 140k in white.  ?  Yes  timing wrong  indeed on that one but not sure was 2012).  Spoke to a guy that picked one up after looking for 2 years ( manual) who paid retail against the 140k  and drove it back from Sydney to Perth grinning all the way whilst adding 5000 plus on the odometer in less than a week.

No, this one was $179k at the same time as the white one, it lasted only a few days. I can’t for the life of me remember what colour it was, maybe silver but definitely a 2012 (unlike the white which was 2010 from memory).

[smit2100]

Just now, sleazius said:

No, this one was $179k at the same time as the white one, it lasted only a few days. I can’t for the life of me remember what colour it was, maybe silver but definitely a 2012 (unlike the white which was 2010 from memory).

Yes I think  the WOVR was a  2010.  The guy I spoke to picked his up for a bit less than that price around a year ago and its black with gloss black rims.  For me, white and  carbon fibre  and factory black rims ideally.  Not a bad spec for gt3's either.

[flamingporsche]

Sounds very much like the app Turo. Not sure I’d be putting my car up for hire, but maybe use it for getting something flash for a trip. 

[mbedford]

Thank you for all your replies on this topic, we've been watching them and discussing internally with great interest. It seems the common response across the car enthusiast forums we asked the question to, is that the option of a 'car experience sharing club' where you need to own a sports car to be in the club, you share it to gain access to others sports cars in the club, is the chosen model where people are more comfortable as others have 'skin in the game'.

This does make a lot of sense, you have to have your own car in the system to build a trust, treat others cars as you would want yours treated. Full cover extensive insurance during the 'sharing time' and not affecting your own insurance is of course a important requirement too. Allowing renters to just pay money to come in and rent your car is a real turn off is apparent.

We are making a lot of phone calls to various Australian insurers to talk about insurance models that may work, there are a lot of learnings from similar sharing models like 'Turo' here, but they dont operate their insurance model in Australia. We will report back when we have more findings, this may be the trickiest area.

Also we have created a FAQ page which answer some of the commonly asked questions: http://www.beddysblog.com/carexpsharing/faq/

Thank for all the responses.

[DJM]

The prospect of individuals putting cars into a pool to be able to drive other’s cars I would imagine has very very limited appeal.  Most enthusiasts pamper their cars and letting some random drive it when you’re not involved is pretty unappealing even if members of the same club.  I’m not as precious as some and I’m happy to let family, mates etc have a go to share the experience but I wouldn’t share outside that circle.

[JWM]

It would be nice if this worked but I think you’re fighting an uphill battle against the tragedy of the commons:
 

The tragedy of the commons is a situation in a shared-resource system where individual users, acting independently according to their own self-interest, behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting or spoiling the shared resource through their collective action.

[Sustenpass]

What’s to stop a bunch of 25 year old owners of Polo GTi’s signing up, ‘renting’ each other’s cars to build up points so they can spank someone else’s 911 with little risk?

 

 

[911barber]

As others have said I enjoy having mates drive my cars, the proposed idea makes me wanna sit in a corner while rocking back and forth. 

[hugh]

I remember seeing a guy leave a track day quite suddenly in an R8. Turns out that the hire car company had a location beacon on it and gave him a call. 

Kids. God love them. 

[DJM]

11 hours ago, hugh said:

I remember seeing a guy leave a track day quite suddenly in an R8. Turns out that the hire car company had a location beacon on it and gave him a call. 

Kids. God love them. 

Did he at least get a few laps in before he got pinged.......?

[hugh]

1 hour ago, DJM said:

Did he at least get a few laps in before he got pinged.......?

Pretty sure he did. 

[mbedford]

Hi all,

Thanks very much for all the replies! We've decided to close this idea off and not work on it further. Most of the feedback pivoted the idea to make it a car sharing club between members only and not allowing those to pay cash to enter into the system and hire cars. The thinking was to have 'skin in the game', when you put your own car in the clubs circle for hire you'll be more respectful to others cars. Having said that 2 main hurdles came up we cannot safely get over to warrant pursuing this any further:

1) People are very protective of their sports cars, they love and cherish them, most respondents said they would only lend their car to the close friends and family only, no one else, except for a generous few. This is slightly strange as the boat sharing clubs which are similar sharing high worth personal items, people are ok to share around in a sharing club, but people must view cars differently to boats.

2) We couldn't find any insurer that would under right our proposal, regardless if it was a closed club type arrangement and if if we put data loggers in the cars in case of accidents and to stop car abuse. We spoke to many brokers and insurance companies, all the ones you would have heard of, Shannons e.t.c and the same ones underwriting CarNextDoor and other non sports car sharing insurance underwriters.

Anyway we thank you all for your replies and taking the time. Cheers all.

[Gavn]

52 minutes ago, mbedford said:

Hi all,

Thanks very much for all the replies! We've decided to close this idea off and not work on it further. Most of the feedback pivoted the idea to make it a car sharing club between members only and not allowing those to pay cash to enter into the system and hire cars. The thinking was to have 'skin in the game', when you put your own car in the clubs circle for hire you'll be more respectful to others cars. Having said that 2 main hurdles came up we cannot safely get over to warrant pursuing this any further:

1) People are very protective of their sports cars, they love and cherish them, most respondents said they would only lend their car to the close friends and family only, no one else, except for a generous few. This is slightly strange as the boat sharing clubs which are similar sharing high worth personal items, people are ok to share around in a sharing club, but people must view cars differently to boats.

2) We couldn't find any insurer that would under right our proposal, regardless if it was a closed club type arrangement and if if we put data loggers in the cars in case of accidents and to stop car abuse. We spoke to many brokers and insurance companies, all the ones you would have heard of, Shannons e.t.c and the same ones underwriting CarNextDoor and other non sports car sharing insurance underwriters.

Anyway we thank you all for your replies and taking the time. Cheers all.

I'd say point 1 is hitting the nail on the head.  Your point around the difference between cars and boats is something I'd previously encountered and there is a significant difference in the psychology of the two groups.