The first fully contactless peer-to-peer car sharing service in the UAE region has been launched by ekar. For those of you who don’t know, ekar is the region’s fastest growing car share service.
Due to the pandemic, people are preferring contactless services and that’s why ekar has made its process of renting vehicles completely contactless. The vehicles can be activated via an app which will unlock the cars despite the keys being inside them. To prevent theft, these cars will be completely immobilized until the authentication from the app is complete.
The company claims that its “peer-to-peer solution removes the host and renter's need to meet in person or the clumsy and often time-consuming key handover.” ekar offers two peer-to-peer hosting options: short-term and long-term. The short term hosts can commit their cars for a rental for a minimum of eight hours, eight days a month from their location of choice. The long term hosters, or 'ekar Entrepreneurs' as the company calls them, will dedicate their cars for a minimum of one month to the Riyadh based car sharing service.
Vilhelm Hedberg, Founder of ekar, said: "Ride-hailing companies did an excellent job introducing the gig economy to car owners, allowing them to become chauffeurs and make additional income. ekar hosts, on the other hand, can inject their cars into ekar's platform from the comfort of their couch, and we handle the rest. A car owner can now spend their valuable time on other activities, rather than chauffeuring, and enjoy high yielding passive income on assets they already own.”
"In today's environment, with new car production nearing an all-time low and fuel prices nearing an all-time high, peer-to-peer car sharing is an ideal solution that benefits both the entrepreneurially-minded host and the cost-conscious renter,” he concluded.
