Uber Carshare Shutting down - "Car Owners, Reliant Borrowers, and Even Uber’s Staff Seemingly Left in The Lurch"

besttechadvisor on 22/08/2024 - 17:01

Copied from a Facebook post in the Carsharers Australia group:

Uber’s plan to revolutionise car ownership in Australia by encouraging owners to rent out their cars when not in use is ending. The company is shutting down its Carshare business, which began in 2022 with the $105 million acquisition of Car Next Door. This move concludes Uber’s significant experiment in Australia, aimed at expanding its car-sharing services globally. Uber declined to comment.

Car Next Door co-founder Will Davies, who joined Uber to lead the car-sharing division, did not respond to requests for comment. While ride-sharing has disrupted the taxi industry in Australia, car sharing has struggled to gain the same traction.

Uber’s car-sharing model, similar to Airbnb for cars, was based on the idea that Australians would rent out their idle vehicles and that more people would forgo car ownership. Car Next Door had attracted various early investors over its 10-year development, including Hyundai, Suncorp, Ampol, and venture capitalist Steve Baxter of Shark Tank fame. Despite this support, the car-sharing model has proven difficult to sustain.

Uber appears to be making the same lateral move as the company has recently launched Uber Rent, a new venture which partners with traditional rental brands Thrifty, Budget, and Hertz in Australia and New Zealand, allowing Uber users to hire a car through these established businesses. Uber Rent will be unaffected by the closure of Uber CarShare.

A recent email to car owners using Uber Carshare, dated August 8, mentioned the company strengthening its theft and damage policy, ending its referral program on August 30, and reassuring owners that a downturn in bookings through winter was soon to turn around. “The winter months have always been a slow season for the car rental market,” the email read. “The decline in earnings you may have experienced over the winter months is primarily due to the broader rental market seasonality and based on historical trends, trip volume begins picking up again from September onwards.”

Stakeholders have not received any communication from Uber about the closure as yet, with car owners, reliant borrowers, and even Uber’s staff seemingly left in the lurch. Car sharing competitors to Uber’s platform in Australia include US-based Turo and Singapore-based Drive Mate, while there are also a number of subscription services such as GoGet, which own the vehicles they distribute.

Jeez, Uber sound more and more like a bunch of exploitative cnuts,

Automotive

Related Stores

Uber Carshare (Formerly Car Next Door)
Uber Carshare (Formerly Car Next Door)

Comments

  • Euphemistic on 22/08/2024 - 17:04
    +17

    Uber sound more and more like are a bunch of exploitative cnuts,

    FTFY

    • justworld on 22/08/2024 - 17:15
      +3

      Cost of doing business is simply too high in Australia to enable these sort of ventures - esp with the new min wage laws that now apply to app drivers (though not directly relevant to Uber Car Share).

      Uber's prices are getting too high - I no longer use any of Uber's services. Not worth it at that price.

      • besttechadvisor on 22/08/2024 - 17:21
        +2

        That's why we need to more import more slaves backpackers.

        • Euphemistic on 22/08/2024 - 17:47
          +12

          Nope. Minimum wage is there for a reason

          Uber was set up to exploit people who thoighht they were earning pocket money, not for a full time wage. Its only fair that since it turneed into full time work that workers get a decent wage and conditions. Cut price taxis are an unsustainable business model once it outgrew the 'pocket money'

          • CaptainJack on 22/08/2024 - 18:11
            -8

            @Euphemistic: This is the obvious issue with minimum wage laws. The costs are too high for what the service is, people aren't willing to pay the required prices, the business closes down and the workers are out of a job.

            • Euphemistic on 22/08/2024 - 19:01
              +13

              @CaptainJack: I have no problem with that. If a business cant afford to pay a decent wage it shouldnt be a business.

              This is especially true of multi national businesses.

          • besttechadvisor on 22/08/2024 - 19:34

            @Euphemistic: I'm not getting into a debate, it was clearly sarcasm even without an /s

      • Euphemistic on 22/08/2024 - 17:44
        +5

        Carshare wasnt killed by min wage. It was probably the insurance.

        • plmko on 22/08/2024 - 21:50

          Why probably? They literally wrote insurance in the public response..

          • Euphemistic on 23/08/2024 - 09:53

            @plmko: I didnt read it, was apparently a correct guess

      • vodamerc on 22/08/2024 - 20:36
        +1

        What min wage laws? Uber drivers are taking a massive pay cut just this week for example. (Up to 40% during certain times)

        • Ade99 on 23/08/2024 - 08:32

          Only way to get any business as normal rates are very high……

      • spc12go on 23/08/2024 - 08:25
        +1

        Cost of doing business is too high? You mean the margin is too high for business. Just look at the record profit for banks, supermarket and the big multi national. The wage is higher than other countries so as our cost of living and company operating profits.

        If all in comparison, look at Switzerland and Nordic countries. The cost of doing business is high, however company loves to base there because profit margin is also high, so it all balance out, you are free to pay people peanuts and then you earn mediocre profit margin and survive through volume.

        • eug on 23/08/2024 - 09:14

          If all in comparison, look at Switzerland and Nordic countries. The cost of doing business is high, however company loves to base there because profit margin is also high, so it all balance out

          The cost of living there is pretty high though, so if someone gets paid more but everything costs more, that does negate things somewhat.

        • JDMcarfan on 23/08/2024 - 10:44

          please take the banks out of your comparison. I've worked at a couple and this your comment is not correct.
          I know the media love to go on about the record profits (and yes they are large in an absolute sense) but the average margin of the banks is less than 2%.
          No other industry can tolerate a margin that low, but when you're dealing with ~$1Trillion loan book, overall profits are inevitably going to end at the ~$10bn the largest one reports. Also >70% of Australian bank shares are owned by domestic investors, so factoring in dividend payments ~50% of that profit goes straight to Aussie pockets, a further 25-35% gets re-invested in the business, and the residual is what goes offshore.

          • spc12go on 23/08/2024 - 12:36
            +1

            @JDMcarfan: Why not? You can’t say banking industry is special. If you compare industry to industry? Australian banks profit is very high in comparison to its peers around the world.

            Some industry has high margin some industry has low margin. Low margin would be from those relative safe industry and they make their profit through large amount of transactions. The industry that is able to make massive profit are the ones that’s capable of paying their management high salary and bonus.

      • whyisave on 31/08/2024 - 19:47

        Uber's prices are getting too high - I no longer use any of Uber's services. Not worth it at that price.

        Uber pretty much bought the competition / rival to its business, and then now, killed & buried its competition, after about 2 years(?)

  • jv on 22/08/2024 - 17:07
    +6

    Uber Carshare Shutting down

    Not surprised…

    I joined when it was 'Car Next Door' but cancelled as soon as I found out Uber bought them out…

    • FoxJump on 22/08/2024 - 22:01
      +4

      i rented out my car in 2015 via cnd and Will Davis was the one i met in Kingsford to put the stickers on. Hey i even still have his mobile number on my phone book.

      i also was saddened that they sold out to uber. but good on him. he got this millions.

      • penguinswillrise on 23/08/2024 - 09:07

        Used them a lot when I was a student living in Kingsford - perhaps your car was one of them!

        • FoxJump on 23/08/2024 - 11:53

          was it orange?

  • Jimothy Wongingtons on 22/08/2024 - 17:33
    +1

    I’m no fancy big city business analyst but could see it wasn’t going to work from the start.

    • Gunnar on 22/08/2024 - 18:40
      +1

      If only they stayed and listened to your presentation on jiko Kanri

  • Boioioioi on 22/08/2024 - 18:05
    +8

    Shame, it was convenient. I needed a ute to go pick up a spare engine for my car. Signed up, got $50 bonus, paid $9 out of pocket for 1 day of ute hire.

    • Gunnar on 22/08/2024 - 18:41

      I used it once to hire a van and move house. It was in trouble for some time because of the amount of discounts they were giving people

      The down side is how much it cost per kilometre was a huge disincentive

    • coffeeinmyveins on 23/08/2024 - 11:38

      I needed a ute to go pick up a spare engine for my car. Signed up, got $50 bonus, paid $9 out of pocket for 1 day of ute hire.

      That's literally the reason this has failed, because it's not profitable when people are doing one off things like that.

      • Boioioioi on 23/08/2024 - 11:39
        +1

        Fair enough, I have no sympathy for Uber. Scum

      • Euphemistic on 31/08/2024 - 22:07

        It was built on a model that wasnt meant to be for profitting. It was designed to share a massive resource that is underutilised and give people some pocket money for sharing their stuff.

  • 87percent on 22/08/2024 - 18:33
    +1

    So Uber Rent, which allows users to rent cars from places like Hertz?? Why would you not go directly to Hertz and hire it?!

    • eug on 22/08/2024 - 18:54
      +1

      Having a quick look at it, they show you prices from multiple rental places then let you book with your Uber account. Looks like it's similar to services like vroomvroomvroom.

      Interestingly I can find cheaper rentals on uber rent than vroomvroomvroom.

    • sumyungguy on 22/08/2024 - 20:33

      It was like the Airbnb of car hire, privately owned vehicles made available for rental; for example

      • eug on 23/08/2024 - 09:23
        +1

        That's Uber Carshare (which is what this post is about), but OP was talking about Uber Rent. Probably no Maseratis there though!

  • EFC94 on 22/08/2024 - 21:13
    +3

    Hired a van for 8 days in Perth last year, slept in the back and drove round during the day, they gave me a good discount as well but forget how much.

  • Wiadro on 22/08/2024 - 22:50
    +3

    i got a van a few months ago, put about 500km on it, went through a few tolls and it cost me $43 for the day

  • payless69 on 23/08/2024 - 05:41
    +1

    I used car next door a lot during covid was very happy with them but when uber took over I put my stolen car back onto the road.
    Hope car next door will start up again.

  • kanter on 23/08/2024 - 09:17

    Pretty shit move from Uber, I've had a van on the platform for 6 years, one week notice to say they're shutting down, and the alternative (Turo) won't accept vehicles that are more than 10 years old (Carnextdoor/Ubercarshare had an exception for vans and utes).
    Inconvenient for me but no big drama, however there are people with up to 100 vehicles on the platform who will have had a rough night last night!

  • wannagrababargain on 23/08/2024 - 09:24

    It was probably never a sound business case and Car Next Door likely knew it so cashed out when the opportunity came up for Uber to buy them out. It didn't help that their searching/filtering functions left much to be desired. Every time I needed to hire a car for more than 1 day I could always find a better deal from the traditional companies (Sixt, Avis etc.) There were hundreds of cars on car share that had empty calendars for months.

    • kanter on 23/08/2024 - 09:55
      +1

      You really think Uber dropped $50M to buy a dud? They got what they needed out of it (a wealth of data on people's mobility needs and trends). CND / Uber Carshare was never meant to be a replacement for Hertz/Sixt/Avis, but for a convenient pick up /drop off near your house for short trips/short duration. As soon as you needed multiple days/great distances, rental companies were always cheaper, but it wasn't the same target. It was also never meant to be a money making exercise for owners, but a way to cover some of your car costs while you don't need the vehicle

  • mini2 on 23/08/2024 - 10:01
    +1

    I wonder if this is going to help Turo.

  • holdenmg on 23/08/2024 - 12:37
    +1

    I notice Drivemycar.com.au is now Carly, https://www.carly.co

    • besttechadvisor on 23/08/2024 - 22:23

      Yes, DriveMyCar failed as well, so now they're just another car subscription platform.

      • holdenmg on 23/08/2024 - 23:26

        Sad, the only other one I know of was Kinto by Toyota.

        That will work because people want to maybe try a Car, or rent one while waiting for parts or a repair.

  • whyisave on 31/08/2024 - 17:47

    On UberCarShare now…

    We're not accepting bookings starting after 27 August 2024

    What a bummer, … as I was just in need of a van for furniture removal.

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join