Flightcar failed, but was it fundamental to the market, or just this specific company?
I wonder if there's a successful business to be done in this space. I'm not convinced the fundamental economics work -- most business travelers value convenience and lack of failure (and are responsible for most high-margin, low-hassle rentals); families or individual non-business <25yo, etc. are more likely to heavily use and thus damage a car.
It also seems a bit crazy to rent out a personal car unless you don't particularly care about that car, or are very confident the rental agency can detect and fix any problems. Generally, even with great maintenance, ex-rental cars do not do great on resale compared to single-driver cars.
This would work great for 100% self-driving cars, but there's no particular reason for individuals to own and rent out the self driving cars -- those could just be owned by a fleet provider who can borrow at 0-2%.
I do believe it's the specific company. They treated customers too poorly. Just take a look at Yelp to see many angry reviews. (If I remember correctly it's 2.5 stars average, and it seems like Yelp actually hid some bad reviews which are not spam)
I personally wanted it to be successful and put my brand new car there for a month. The mileage goes from 3,600 to 5,500 and I got $194 in return. I was happy about that and gave a good review on Yelp. However later experience was a horrible, horrible nightmare, they are just being irresponsible from time to time. And they didn't just do that to me, they did it to everyone. Eww.
I'd be surprised if it ever works. Too many variables.
The service that I think will be killer is Luxe/Zirx at the airport: drive right up to the curb drop-off, someone takes your car and then returns it right to you as you exit the baggage claim. For a fee somewhere between off-airport and short-term parking.
I don't think Luxe style "wait for someone to razor scooter to you, then drive off" would work -- too far, and waiting even 5 minutes in the dropoff area of an airport would be obnoxious for the airport, and thus banned.
Actual valet parking at the airport would be great, though (with a manned facility where you drive up, drop off, and fly). I've been to airports which offered this. Aside from taxi mafia regulatory capture, I don't see why more places don't offer it. (On return, I'm indifferent between valet-returns-with-car, and taking a shuttle to your car elsewhere; the thing I want to optimize is dropoff speed.)
This has never been much of an issue in the valet or Luxe/Zirx business. I think it's very manageable even without some of the techniques available when both parties have a smart phone.
GoMore[0] has been pretty successful around here, with half a million members (or so they claim) I haven't seen any signs of decreasing popularity either. They do ridesharing, p2p car rental and also lease cars directly.
I wonder if there's a successful business to be done in this space. I'm not convinced the fundamental economics work -- most business travelers value convenience and lack of failure (and are responsible for most high-margin, low-hassle rentals); families or individual non-business <25yo, etc. are more likely to heavily use and thus damage a car.
It also seems a bit crazy to rent out a personal car unless you don't particularly care about that car, or are very confident the rental agency can detect and fix any problems. Generally, even with great maintenance, ex-rental cars do not do great on resale compared to single-driver cars.
This would work great for 100% self-driving cars, but there's no particular reason for individuals to own and rent out the self driving cars -- those could just be owned by a fleet provider who can borrow at 0-2%.