Your own car, taxi or car sharing: Which is more profitable?

Home > Articles > What is carsharing and how does it work in 2020

Car sharing (from the English car sharing) is a type of car rental from a commercial organization or from individuals. It differs from the usual car rental in that car sharing operates on a shared consumption model. This is when people rent or use collectively instead of buying to own. Car sharing vehicles are usually rented for short periods of time and frequently. There are several types of car sharing: short-term, client-to-client and shared car ownership.

Types of cashing

Short-term car sharing (one-way carsharing) - renting a car for short periods of time (minutes, hours or days) within an authorized zone (within a city or metropolis). Short-term car sharing cars are distributed throughout the city; there is no centralized rental point. You can park your car anywhere where there is a parking sign. Payment is usually per minute or hourly. All interaction with the car and payments takes place in the mobile application.

Car sharing “client-to-client” (peer-to-peer carsharing ) is a rental model when cars are owned by individuals or rental companies. The tenant and the landlord find each other on aggregator sites.

Fractional carsharing is the collective use of a vehicle. Several people cooperate based on interests or territorial characteristics and buy a car or a fleet of vehicles for joint use.

In Russia, the most common type of carsharing is short-term (one-way carsharing), and there will be most information about it in this article. This type of car sharing is carried out by the companies Delimobil, Belkacar, Yandex Drive and more than 15 others, widespread in the USA, and starting from 2020 it is actively developing in Russia. Joint ownership of cars is not yet practiced in Russia due to mental and legal nuances.

Advantages and disadvantages

So, we have found out the translation into Russian of the word “car sharing”, figured out how it works and in which cities of Russia it is present. We suggest separately identifying the pros and cons of car sharing in order to make a final decision on whether this method of using a car is actually beneficial.

Advantages

• Possibility to rent a car for any period, even very short;
• The opportunity to have a car, damn it! After all, not every person can afford it. And yet, you can change cars like gloves!
• The driver does not pay for gasoline, car wash, or car maintenance costs;
• The car sharing company issues compulsory motor liability insurance itself;
• The car does not need to be picked up and brought back to the pick-up point;
• You drive only when you need a car and pay only for the time spent on the road.
• A large number of cars. For example, the Yandex Drive company has more than 10,000 cars.
• Simple registration, which takes place online through the application. That is, there is no need to go to the office during working hours, sign papers, or sit in lines;
• It is convenient and, indeed, profitable. The minimum cost of a minute of travel in an economy class car is 5 rubles. For an hour you will pay only 300 rubles.

Short-term car sharing in Russia

It so happens that the term “car sharing” in Russia almost always means short-term car sharing. Here all actions are as automated as possible. The main actions are performed using a mobile application on a smartphone: booking, access to the car, rental management, payment. The client pays only for the time of actual use of the car. The trip fee is automatically debited from the bank card immediately after the rental is completed. Communication with support takes place through chatbots or an application. You can start and end your rental anywhere in the city, located in the “home” or “green” zone. In the future, all carsharing cars will be evenly distributed throughout the city, within walking distance from the client (5-10 minutes on foot).

Why is car sharing so popular?

There are several reasons why carsharing is becoming more popular and widespread every year. Let's look at just a few advantages:

1. Saving money
   . Only the time of actual use is paid. This is especially beneficial if you need the car for literally 15 minutes.
2. Saving time
   . Users registered in the system do not need to come to the office and fill out documents. All you need to do is use the application installed on your smartphone.
3. Easy payment
   . The rent is paid automatically (money is withdrawn from the card when the client leaves the car in the parking lot).
4. You can get a car at any time
   . Machines are available 24 hours a day, no need to wait for the office to open.
5. There is no need to maintain and maintain a personal car
   . The company itself maintains the car in order, fuels it, regularly carries out maintenance and issues insurance.
6. The car is always in good condition and clean
   . You always receive a car prepared for the trip - clean, in good working order and fueled, because... This is actively monitored by company employees.
7. 24/7 support
   . If emergency situations arise, you can call technical support at any time of the day.

How to start using carsharing?

The registration procedure is slightly different for different car sharing services. But in any case, you need a driver’s license (usually with at least 2 years of experience), a bank card and a passport. Registration takes place on the website or in the mobile application. After the request is approved by the company's security service, all that remains is to link the bank card in your personal account.

Which car sharing services include Mercedes and other luxury cars?

Luxury cars are expensive and require a special approach. That’s why car sharing services BelkaCar, Car 5 and Delimobil offer them for rent to people over 25 years of age with at least 5 years of driving experience.

Mercedes, BMW, Audi TT - this is a high level, for serious people.

Compact and nimble Smart models are very popular among city residents. In addition, smart cars are environmentally friendly and have low fuel consumption.

car sharing

What is the price?

The tariffs of car sharing operators with per-minute and hourly payment consist of two parts: “Rent” and “Waiting”. The cost of a minute in the “Rent” mode varies among different companies from 5 to 16 rubles, in the “Waiting” mode – from 1.5 to 3.5 rubles. Money is automatically debited from your bank card after the rental is completed. Some operators have package offers: daily rates or packages of minutes (based on the “cheaper in bulk” principle). Special rates apply for corporate clients.

Features of carsharing

There are many features of the described service. You need to familiarize yourself with them to avoid troubles and mistakes. Here are the most basic of them:

1. Rentals cannot be completed in closed parking lots or parking areas.
2. Fines for violating traffic rules are initially sent to the company, and then its employees forward them to the culprit for payment.
3. During the registration process, you need to read the agreement very carefully. Very often the company sets its own individual sanctions. One of them, for example, provides for a fine of 150 thousand rubles for transferring control of a car to another person.
4. Gasoline is included in the rental price. If the fuel runs out, the car needs to be refueled. This must be done not only because certain bonuses are provided for refueling; some companies impose monetary fines for a car left with an empty tank.

All rental cars are insured under the MTPL policy. If while using a car the driver gets into an accident and is innocent, he will not have to pay for anything. If mutual guilt is detected, the fine will be paid according to the rules established by the company.

What cars are available in Russian car sharing?

The car sharing fleet in Russia is very diverse. Most of them are budget foreign cars. The YouDrive company offers two- and four-seater Smarts. You can rent a Hyundai Solaris from Delimobil and Car5. BelkaCar specializes in Kia Rio. The AnyTime car sharing fleet includes various passenger cars from Kia to BMW, as well as Renault Kangoo cargo vans. Lifcar has a Chinese Lifan X50. For patriots, the Carousel with Lada Granta is suitable.

There are also premium cars in car sharing. Since May 2020, YouDrive has been offering its customers to rent a Mercedes A-Class, as well as Smart Cabrio and Smart Turbo. In August, BelkaCar launched premium car sharing BelkaBlack with Mercedez-Benz CLA 200 Urban sedans. The cost per minute for renting such cars is 2-2.5 times more expensive than cars in the budget segment. And the requirements for the age and experience of drivers are higher.

How to use the car sharing service in Moscow and other cities of the Russian Federation?

Having driven a per-minute rental car once and understood how it works, you still cannot consider yourself a pro. You should always remember that you are not driving a personal car, so you need to use it with precautions. This is especially true for car sharing in foreign countries - Europe, Cyprus, Turkey, Georgia. When drawing up an agreement, it is better to spend time familiarizing yourself with the rules of rent, payment and operation than to find yourself hostage to a conflict in a foreign country.

In the Moscow region, the car sharing network has been developed over the course of three years and today includes about 15 companies. During this time, many were able to test luxury and economy cars and solve their pressing problems with the help of a convenient service for modern people.

Leaving your car in Domodedovo or Sheremetyevo and going to Vnukovo in a rented car is very simple, and, most importantly, convenient! We described above what popular operators there are in Moscow, and now let’s move on to a review of car sharing in the Northern capital.

In St. Petersburg, five operators offer their services: Delimobil, Colesa, Car5, YouDrive and Rentmee. While the city authorities do not support the co-owners, the development of the network is not as great as in the capital.

Delimobil in St. Petersburg

This is a popular company with loyal rental conditions and driver requirements. Thus, the requirement for a driver is to be at least 19 years old and have at least a year of driving experience.

The operator's coverage area is constantly growing, information can be gleaned from the mobile application. To register the remaining mobile application.

The price for rental in driving mode is the same as throughout the Russian Federation - from 7 to 8 rubles per minute, waiting is paid 2.5 rubles per minute. Two tariffs “Basic” and “Fairy Tale” determine the amount of financial responsibility of the client.

Colesa in St. Petersburg

It differs from other operators in its pricing policy - payment is made for the time spent in driving mode - 2.5 rubles and for mileage of one kilometer - 18 rubles. It is estimated that this method is more profitable for the client, as it saves time during delays and traffic jams.

To register, you must fill out an electronic application and then sign an agreement in the office.

YouDrive in St. Petersburg

An extensive coverage area, up to 250 km from the Ring Road, and a large fleet of cars attract the operator, who was the first to start car sharing in St. Petersburg. The cost of renting a car in driving mode starts from 8 rubles, and in standby mode 2.5 rubles. The fine system is quite strict, but fair. For a violation or accident caused by the driver, the fine will be approximately 70,000 rubles. If the driver is not guilty, no fine will be imposed on him.

Rentmee in St. Petersburg

You can use Hyndai Solaris and Ravon R2 cars to travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow and back. A driver over 20 years of age with 2 years of driving experience can rent a car. Fuel refueling is carried out and paid for by the client. The cost of renting a car in driving mode is 6 rubles per minute, in standby mode - 2 rubles, daily rental is 1200 rubles. In the event of an accident, the client may be fined up to 50,000 rubles.

CAR5 in St. Petersburg

The service appeared recently, at the end of 2020. This explains the conditions of not a per-minute, but an hourly rental, as well as the requirement for a deposit. Cars for rent are located at five addresses located in the city center, near the airport and the Subaru center.

How to start renting?

You need to select a car on the map and book it. The first 20 minutes after booking he will wait for free, then the “Waiting” mode tariff will automatically turn on. Finding a reserved car on the street is usually not difficult. Some companies offer to honk or flash the reserved car in the app.

Before opening the car, you must inspect it carefully. Before starting the rental, an electronic acceptance certificate is signed in the mobile application. The company will submit claims for all identified scratches and chips to the previous tenants. But if you do not report them, all damages will automatically become yours.

Car sharing procedure

Each car sharing company is guided by its own individual rules in the process of providing services, that is, it provides a car on individual terms. Despite this, there is a general algorithm for providing rentals. It consists of several main stages, approximately the same for every modern company.

Registration with an operator

To use a vehicle, mandatory registration is required in advance. This can be done not only on the company’s official website, but also in a specialized application, which can be downloaded from Google Play or the App Store.

Car sharing is indispensable without a mobile app. All the most basic processes are carried out here, operations and rental times are recorded.

The registration process involves a standard activation process via email. A special message will be sent to it about the documents that will need to be uploaded for subsequent verification. After this, an electronic contract is signed.

Search for a car

Before searching for and booking a car, you need to make sure that a bank card is linked to your account, with which you can pay for trips.

If per-minute billing is used, payment will be charged upon completion of use of the car. If daily, the cost will be debited from the card before the start of the rental. After linking the card, the following sequence of actions is performed:

1. Using the login and password set during registration, you can log in to the mobile application.
2. A city map opens to find a nearby car.
3. The icon with the found car is clicked, after which the address where the car is located is automatically displayed.
4. Be sure to check the fuel level.
5. If everything suits you, the rental type is selected – per-minute or daily.
6. The “Book” button is pressed.

After completing the steps, you can go to the selected car. The payment rate will begin to be fixed not after booking, but only after the initial activation of the car.

Vehicle inspection

Before use, the vehicle must be carefully inspected for various external damages. If nothing of the kind was found, use the application to open the car and check its condition inside.

Be sure to check the presence of documents in the glove compartment:

• OSAGO policy;
• fuel card;
• STS for cars.

If during the inspection you find some damage, scratches and dents, you should immediately contact the call center staff. If everything is in order, the acceptance certificate of the car is accepted, and you can start driving.

Using a car

To start the driving process, you simply need to turn the ignition key located in the lock. When moving around the city, you must follow the traffic rules. The user will pay all assigned fines independently. If you need to make a temporary stop, the car simply parks in an authorized place. You need to turn off the engine, close the door, and put the car itself into standby mode.

If, while using the car, a light appears on the panel indicating a lack of fuel, you will need to refuel. For this purpose, you need to find one of the nearby gas stations. You need to use only those gas stations that are reflected in the mobile application. Having arrived at one of them, you need to contact a company employee and receive a special PIN code from him. It must be reported to the gas station employee.

Don't be annoyed if you have to refuel your car yourself. For the implementation of this process, operators provide a certain number of free minutes of using the machine.

Termination of lease

To complete your trip you will need to do the following:

• find a nearby parking lot;
• install a vehicle on it;
• turn off the engine;
• put the transmission in “P” mode;
• get out of the car and close it using the application.

This is interesting: BMW G30 car

At this stage, the rental is considered completed.

Car sharing coverage areas and parking

Most operators in Moscow and St. Petersburg allow you to drive a rented car within the ring road and travel into the region at a distance of up to 250 km. The lease completion area is much smaller. This is due to the small number of carsharing cars. According to experts, the capacity of the Moscow car sharing market is at least 10,000-15,000 cars. And now the total fleet of the capital’s car sharing is a little more than 6,000 cars.

You cannot end your rental in closed courtyards, parking lots or parking lots with limited access. Paid parking in the center of Moscow is already included in the rental price for all operators. In addition, some car sharing services have agreements with airports. Their clients can end their rental and leave the car for free in designated parking lots at airports. For example, in Domodedovo, places in the P4 parking lot are allocated for Delimobil and BelkaCar cars. But if you leave the car in another Domodedovo parking lot, the client will be billed for parking.

How it works?

So, we’ve figured out what car sharing is, now let’s find out how to use this service. The most difficult thing for a new client is the registration stage. You will need to enter your passport data, payment card details and identification information from your driver's license (you must have 3 years of driving experience). After registering in the system, using car sharing cars is quite simple:

1. Use the app to find the nearest available car.
2. Arrive at the parking lot and pick up your car. From this moment on, time begins to count.
3. After finishing the trip, leave the car in the parking lot indicated by the application.

The entire process is as automated as possible. Money is withdrawn from the payment card registered in the system when the user leaves the car in the parking lot.

All car sharing companies maintain blacklists to help them avoid “problem” customers. They include those who have had road accidents, as well as scammers who remove spare parts from rented cars.

Car sharing and fines

Fines for violating traffic rules first arrive at the car sharing company, and from there they are forwarded to the guilty client. Therefore, it is not always possible to take advantage of the two-week grace period and the 50% discount.

In addition, all companies have their own fines for violating rental rules. For example, the fine for transferring control of a car to another person (without completing the rental) in YouDrive is up to 150,000 rubles. When registering for a car sharing service, carefully read the rental terms.

In which Russian cities is it possible to use the service?

Shared transport is available in both capitals, including Moscow and St. Petersburg. You can also order the service in many major cities:

• Ufa.
• Sochi.
• Nizhny.
• Novgorod.
• Krasnoyarsk.
• Rostov-on-Don.

Recently, car sharing appeared in: Novosibirsk, Grozny, Krasnodar, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Ryazan and Tula. You can see the full list of cities in which car sharing companies operate on their official websites of the following companies:

• Easy Ride.
• Delimobil.
• YouDrive.
• Car5.
• BelkaCar.

Insurance and gas

All carsharing cars are insured under MTPL. Some services have tariffs with CASCO insurance. And Delimobil also offers an additional option - to insure your health during the trip. In any case, if the client is not at fault for the accident, then he will not have to pay anything. But in case of mutual fault, in addition to partial compensation for damage, the operator will require to pay a fine in accordance with the contract.

Gasoline is already included in the rental price. In some car sharing services, employees refuel their cars themselves (using partner refueling services). Other companies offer customers to drive to a gas station themselves and refuel using a fuel card in the glove compartment. For the time spent refueling, the client is awarded bonus points to his account in his personal account. And for a car left with an empty tank, they can receive a fine of up to 2,000 rubles.

What is car sharing

This is one of the types of car rental. It involves short-term use of a car that belongs to one of the services, with a per-minute payment (the services have additional options, but all basic tariffs are paid per minute).

@matreshcar

Taking this word apart, you can instantly understand its meaning - car (car) and share (share).

At the moment, car sharing is a rapidly developing direction in business and is growing literally before our eyes in more than 15 cities of Russia. This is a product of an economic model called collaborative consumption - people, for the sake of saving various resources, prefer to temporarily use a product rather than own it.

Pros of car sharing

Car sharing allows you to move around the city while driving without purchasing a car as your own. In terms of cost, car sharing is on average cheaper than a taxi. Unless, of course, you drive through traffic jams. It is especially indispensable when you need to make several short trips. The main advantages of carsharing are:

• per minute billing;
• no costs for servicing and maintaining the car (maintenance, insurance, gasoline, wheels - all this is already included in the price);
• free parking in the center of Moscow and at some airports;
• a sense of independence and ownership of a personal car;
• ease of booking and rental management (via mobile application);
• 24/7 technical support.

In addition, car sharing has a positive effect not only on traffic jams in megacities, but also on the ecology of the region as a whole. By choosing car sharing, city residents are increasingly refusing to purchase their own car (which, by the way, usually sits idle for up to 20 hours a day). According to statistics, one car sharing car replaces 10 personal ones.

Why is this necessary?

Car sharing is ideal for short city trips: from home to the metro or moving around the city center. If you get there without traffic jams, it’s not much more expensive than public transport, but it’s much more comfortable. A taxi, as expected, costs more, and each time you need to wait for a car for several minutes.

In Moscow, it is not uncommon for a personal car to be used only on weekends, for shopping trips or to the dacha. It turns out that most of the time the car uselessly takes up space in the yard and wastes money on maintenance and transport tax. You can also go shopping with car sharing, alone or with the whole family - it doesn’t matter. Traveling to the dacha is also possible, but you will have to pay a daily rate to leave the car outside your home zone. The total cost of one trip to the country may be too expensive, but before drawing conclusions, it is worth calculating the total cost of owning a personal car.

Relatively recently, independent transfer to the airport has become possible. This way, you don’t have to worry about luggage in public transport and don’t have to pay for a taxi. It is especially convenient and profitable to ride together, because the car can accommodate up to 5 passengers, including the driver.

Cons of carsharing

Car sharing has its downsides. The service should not be used if:

• you feel insecure behind the wheel;
• you are too squeamish (there are often traces of previous tenants in the car interior);
• your phone is low (you need a smartphone to manage your rental, and chargers in cars are not always working);
• there are not enough funds on the bank card (all operators have fines for late payment of rent);
• there are heavy traffic jams on the roads (taking into account per-minute pricing, the trip will cost more than a taxi).

But the main disadvantage of short-term car sharing in Russia is still the small number of cars. There is not always a free car within a 1 km radius of you (or 15 minutes on foot).

Advantages of carsharing over taxis

In Moscow, using a car rental service is considered cost-effective compared to a taxi. If a trip by economy taxi with a driver from Sheremetyevo Airport to the west of Moscow costs 1,000 rubles, then the cost of a similar route with a rental car will be half that.

In addition, car sharing does not imply the presence of a stranger in the car, so you can drive freely. Whereas in a taxi there is an unfamiliar driver, for whose experience and driving style you do not have to answer.

The main disadvantage of using a rental car is that you cannot leave the car outside the Moscow Ring Road. Exceptions include special parking areas at airports and several metro stations in Moscow. But with a taxi this problem does not arise.

Car sharing "client-client"

In short-term car sharing, a car is rented from large companies with their own large fleet of vehicles. In a client-to-client or peer-2-peer scheme, cars are rented from private individuals, who sometimes rent out their cars when they are not using them. This is one of the ways to reduce your car maintenance costs (maintenance, insurance, gasoline, etc.). Some owners are already making this type of income their main one by actively renting out cars. Such a private vehicle fleet may consist of one personal car, or several that were purchased specifically for rental.

In this car sharing model, the car owner does not need to develop his own automation system: it is enough to register and place his car on aggregator sites. Such services operate as unified platforms for renting or renting out cars. The largest service on the Russian market is the Rent A Ride platform. She has more than 4,000 cars in her database. Rent A Ride also contains offers from traditional rental companies. Another similar platform is Darenta, which has 1001 cars in its database (according to the Wikipedia article). In November 2020, they announced the emergence of another company - Use My Car.

Car park

Aggregators have a wide range of cars of various brands, models and ages. The cars are not painted in car sharing colors, this gives more opportunities for their use (for example, for business purposes). In addition, this type of car sharing does not have such strict restrictions as short-term car sharing. For example, when renting on Rent A Ride, 250 km per day is included. The time of handing over the car must be agreed upon with the owner. All cars are insured under MTPL; this is a mandatory condition for presence in the aggregator. Some aggregators offer a daily CASCO service.

Rental cost according to the client-client scheme

The rental price in the peer-to-peer model is set by the owner of the car. The final cost depends on the rental period. Also, the price of the same car may vary depending on its location. Renting a car parked near the metro will be more expensive than one located far from public transport stops. However, when renting cars on an aggregator, you can order an additional service of delivering the car to a place convenient for the renter; this is paid separately. Before the start of the rental, a small amount (5-10 thousand rubles) is blocked on the tenant’s bank card, which is returned 7 days after the end of the rental. This amount can be used to pay possible fines for traffic violations. Fuel is not included in the rental price. The car must be returned with the same amount as at the beginning of the rental.

May 02, 2017

Anytime BelkaBlack BelkaCar Car5 Colesa.com Lifcar UrentCar YouDrive Delimobil Carousel car sharing

Why car sharing is not suitable for

Due to the fact that a minute of standing in a traffic jam and driving are valued exactly the same, moving around the city during rush hours threatens with large financial losses due to standing in traffic jams. The first attempts to correct the situation are the imminent launch of a fixed tariff from Yandex. The system is similar to a taxi, you select the end point and the system calculates the cost of the trip in advance depending on the traffic situation and demand. Leaving the route only threatens to switch back to the per-minute tariff.

The second thing that car sharing is not suitable for is car travel. It would seem that the claim is unfounded, since car sharing is a public vehicle for the city. But the service competes with a personal car, but does not cover all its capabilities. In the future, when car sharing is better distributed in the regions, the problem will exhaust itself, since it will be possible to rent a car in any city on the spot.