Electrical Connection Spring 2016

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9 0 E L E C T R I C A L CO N N E C T I O N S P R I N G 2 0 16
TIPS
There can be no doubt about it –
the sharing economy is booming.
As testimony to this, the popular
home-sharing service Airbnb has
predicted it will generate over $US900
million in revenue this year alone.
Alongside this, Uber is spreading like
wildfire and fundamentally changing
how we think about catching a taxi.
Indeed, Juniper Research has
found that sharing economy platform
providers are likely to reap the
benefits of an explosion in service
uptake by the end of the decade. The
research paper Sharing Economy:
Opportunities, Impacts, and Disruptors
2016-2020,goes so far as to predict
popular platforms will see a trebling
of revenues by 2020. It also found
that sharing services will expand
further into emerging markets such as
delivery and manufacturing.
Now, a Sydney company that has
been offering a sharing service for car
rentals has joined forces with vehicle
manufacturer LDV Automotive to
apply the business model to the light
commercial sector.
DriveMyCar started about six years
ago when the company’s founder saw
an obvious gap in the market – there
were a lot of cars sitting around not
being used and a lot of renters who felt
they were paying too much.
The idea is fairly basic: owners who
aren’t using their vehicle can hire it
out through the company to a verified
renter. In turn, the renter gets access
to a wide variety of vehicles at a price
that is reportedly quite a bit lower than
traditional rentals.
The company’s recent partnership
with LDV Automotive has allowed
DriveMyCar to expand its offering to
include light commercial vans. This
means tradies can hire a new G10
one-tonne van directly from the
LDV dealer in Parramatta through
an arrangement that, according to
DriveMyCar CEO Chris Noone, benefits
all parties concerned.
“What we were initially attracted
to was the very high prices for light
commercial vans, you can pay about
$100 a day for an old HiAce van and
we think that’s ridiculous because if
you look at the value of those vehicles
it just doesn’t justify those high prices
– you could rent an Audi for that sort
of price.
“We approached LDV because we
knew that they wanted to make a name
for the vans and we thought that one of
the best ways to build the brand within
Australia was actually to get the vans
out on the street and allow people to
try them.
“LDV just want to get people to
understand what they are and how
good they are and the best way to do
that is get them to drive the
vans around.”
The service is fairly streamlined
with the majority of the paperwork
completed online. All payments,
ID checks and an e-signed rental
agreement are completed online
beforehand.
“Once everything is done online,
the tradie turns up to the dealer (who
knows they’ll be arriving). The van
will be ready to drive away after an
inspection report is done on the van to
check for any damage and the ID of the
person is checked. At the end of the
rental period they bring it back
and carry out another inspection
report. We manage all of the billing
and ID verification in the background,
so it’s a really light touch for the
dealers,” says Chris.
While currently only available in
Parramatta, Sydney, DriveMyCar is
in discussions with several other
manufacturers and hopes to expand
the service into multiple locations
across Australia in the near future.
> DriveMyCar
DRIVE MY CAR
From Airbnb to Uber, the
sharing economy is taking off
like never before. DriveMyCar
is Australia’s first peer-to-peer
car rental service and they
have just moved into the light
commercial space in a rather
unconventional way.
DriveMyCar has teamed up with LDV Automotive to create a unique way for
tradies to rent light commercial vans.