Car owners can potentially make a conservative average of €2,500 a year whilst renting their vehicles
Fleet is the ‘Airbnb’ of car rental – The First Disruptor Peer to Peer Car Rental Service to be Launched in Ireland
There are just over 87,000 car licence holders in Wicklow and with the impending entry of Wicklow (Irish for other counties) startup driven by Wicklow derived technology these drivers now have the potential to receive and make a bonus windfall. Ireland’s first ever peer to peer car rental platform, Fleet, is being launched in April of this year and its essentially the ‘Airbnb’ of car rental where any car owner under certain criteria will be able to rent out their car when they’re not using it. With an industry average car rental of €84 per day Fleet estimate their average could be as low as €50 per day though this will vary as people renting out their cars will be able to fix their own prices and prices will then vary due to car specifications and age. If someone rents out their car just once a week then that’ll give them a potential windfall of at least €2,500 per year.
Plans are already afoot for expansion with further launches initially into the UK, Australian, New Zealand and South African markets later this year and into the US market and the rest of Europe in 2018. The new company is already fully funded and it is intended for Fleet to become a disruptive brand both domestically and internationally where there is some competition by being technologically more advanced, faster with a more simplified user experience especially on mobile platforms through an app with more features and reward systems for consumers. Founder and CEO of the startup, Wicklow native Maurice Sheehy, is already a serial entrepreneur and at just 28 is a farmer, horse breeder and a qualified fitness instructor with two fully automated gyms which he funded from the sale of one of his racehorses.
In a major development for the young company they are already in discussions with a global insurance provider to offer cover for Fleet in Ireland ensuring that the rental service, vehicles, renters and rentees are all fully covered and protected from launch date. Provision for all EU driving licenses with no restrictions and limitations to drivers from EU countries will apply subject to standard terms and conditions as well as the provision of breakdown assist and comprehensive cover for all customers. It is intended that monetisation will come through some advertising, income from renters and fleet customers as well as through fees derived from insurance and payment methods such as through Stripe as well as online ‘boosting’ by customers to get their cars more noticed and visible. Fees for cars will be suggested by Fleet to car owners based on make, model, age, spec etc. The app will be available for download worldwide on both iOS and Android platforms having been developed by leading Irish software and app development company Showoff.ie based in Wicklow.
Fleet’s target markets will include the following:
Car owners looking to earn extra income by renting out their vehicles e.g.
- Car owners who commute to work via public transport during the week and only use their car at weekends
- Car owners who have more than one vehicle at home
- Car owners with unique or luxury cars and may want to occasionally rent out
- Car owners who live close to main transport links like an airport, ferry port, bus and train stations
- Enterprise customers like car dealerships with new or used car stock sitting idle in their forecourts whilst waiting to be sold
People who want to rent a car:
- City centre or city living dwellers who do not own a car as they mostly use public transport but would like to use a car at the weekend or one off trips out of the city during the week for work or pleasure
- People who use public transport and cannot afford to own or run a car in urban or rural areas
- Special occasions like a wedding or special weekend away
- Enterprise customers like a service garage who need to supply a client with temporary vehicle if they don’t have a surplus vehicle onsite
- Tourists, business people, overseas visitors arriving by air, land or sea and require a vehicle for rental
Founder and CEO of Fleet Maurice Sheehy said “Fleet was developed when we saw a gap for this type of service in the Irish market and this service can be of benefit to literally thousands of people in Wicklow and we urge them to sign up with us on jointhefleet.com. Peer to peer services of many varieties have taken off in Ireland and worldwide especially after the success of Airbnb and we saw the opportunity to help make our customers cars work harder for them and earn them money whilst providing a cost effective alternative to traditional car rental platforms who have higher price points, overheads and red tape. Ireland is a lucrative market for car rental with a value that has been steadily increasing over the past few years up to over €320m currently with the economy improving and increasing tourist numbers especially from the US and UK combined with poor public transport and infrastructure”.
Interested car owners can pre register their interest and check out jointhefleet.com to claim a €50 free rental credit now.
FLEET BY NUMBERS
- Size of target market in Ireland
o 8m tourists per year (3.5m from UK), Ireland is 19th of top 141 top tourism destinations in the World
o €323m value of car rental retail service in Ireland (2015) with 2.7m transactions, an average rental duration of 4 days and an average sales transaction of €337.70 (avg daily spend €84.40)
o 500 villages/towns/cities in Ireland have Airbnb listings with an average stay of 2.9 nights and there are 4,000 active hosts alone in Dublin and over 1,000 in Galway.
- Size of target market in UK
o UK tourism had 34.6m inbound arrivals in 2015
o Value of car rental market was £1.4bn in 2015
o Uber accounts for 20% of all taxi and private hire drivers in London
- There are an estimates 100m Airbnb users worldwide with over 1m app downloads on iOS alone as of 2012 with obvious exponential growth since.
