I get what you're saying but, for many of us, renting a car for the weekend is a significant hassle and time sink. And then the rental probably isn't set up with a roof rack for canoes, etc. If it were a once a year thing? Sure. But it's not. It's every few weeks at least. (There's also picking up home improvement stuff etc.)
It doesn't always need to be a big SUV either. There are somewhat smaller vehicles that are almost as good for a lot of activities. People are going to keep buying vehicles that they can use for most of their activities.
Part of the problem is that demand is spiky. A lot of people are going to want these rentals on weekends. So, for a reliable on-demand weekend rental, you're probably going to spend a decent chunk of a weekly rental fee if this became common.
What more tends to happen in practice is that urban folk who decide not to own a car just minimize activities that require one unless they can can draft off friends.
I don't think we're disagreeing. I do need a car to go anyplace. But even if I only used it on weekends, I'd almost certainly own one because of, as you say, the friction associated with renting something.
No, renting would not be fine. People take vacations and long day trips, often at the same time as everyone else. The rental supply simply can't satisfy that amount of demand. It doesn't matter if hauling cargo or driving long distances is infrequent or even a small percentage of miles driven - it is a core use case for vehicles. Otherwise, people would simply not be able to do the things they do on holidays.
In these types of conversations someone always brings up the idea of renting a vehicle instead of owning one that can do what you want to do "once a month". Renting a truck or SUV that can tow a decent amount of weight is expensive, if you can find it, and the friction of finding, renting, insuring, picking up, loading the truck, unloading, dropping off, dealing with things when you ding the vehicle, means you mostly won't do that activity. Once a year, rental makes sense. Once a month, nope.
I hesitate to rely on being able to rent a car to go to my cottage in the country on the weekend, because everyone else will be doing the very same thing at the same time. The possibility that I show up for my rental and there isn't one available is really discouraging.
The number of rental cars available in the fleet would approach the number of cars we have now.
You can rent an SUV for when you actually need it from any major rental company, I don't see the issue (and it should be able to take the heavier things, right?!?)
I know multiple people that own a car and will rent something for long trips. A lot of that is for peace of mind and being able to rent exactly what they need. Peace of mind is they don't worry the car will break down. And they can rent a car that is large enough or small enough for that particular trip. One trip it's them for a weekend. Other trip it's them and four other people for a week.
I've noticed that people that do this tend not to be 'car people'
I am in similar situation to OP - I need a larger car during the weekends because I drive 200 miles away for certain events where I need to take loads of stuff with me. But during the week it's mostly me alone in the car driving to work.
I could rent a truck during weekends - but that would be ungodly expensive, especially since I'm under 25 so every rental company charges literally 2x or 3x for car/van rental to drivers under 25. Then I have to worry about returning it on time, and it has to be in perfect condition or again, I have to pay for anything that's damaged. If I scratch my own car - no biggie. If I want to stay overnight - it won't cost me another $100 per day of rental. And then the question is - is it really "better" for the environment/society/traffic to make two cars rather than one?
Yeah but rentals are extremely inconvenient. You need to arrange a ride to the rental place. Most of them close at 5:00pm unless you're close to an airport. So now you're also taking time off work. The paperwork takes at least 20-30 minutes for some ridiculous reason. They will try to upsell you on a larger vehicle, extra insurance, etc. It's a pain.
Once or twice a year it's tolerable. If you get to doing it monthly or more, it's becomes a major detractor.
>No different to how I'd rent a van if I was trying to move a sofa.
That's true. But, for a lot of people, long weekend roadtrips are a lot more common than moving sofas. There's quite a bit of friction associated with driving to a rental place on a Friday, parking your car someplace, driving the rental home, packing it up, and then doing the process in reverse during the rental place's business hours.
You don't have to buy a utility vehicle if you only use it once a month. Renting is both cheaper and better for the environment. Where I live many people don't own a car at all and rent one when they need it. For example I needed a car twice in the last three years.
A friend did this one year. He sold his old car, commuted to work on public transit M-F, and rented a different car every weekend, whether he felt like driving somewhere or not.
Rentals are cheaper on the weekend, and he got to try all sorts of cars. He started with the ones he was most interested in buying, but since he was for ing himself to rent different things, he tried convertibles, sub-sub-compacts, minivans, even a pickup.
When he finally was ready to buy, he had enjoyed a quirky period of trying different things, and was now very sure of exactly what he wanted.
I tried it myself for a summer, even rented an oversize SUV for a climbing trip. And I loathe driving SUVs, but hey, if it’s just for the weekend...
An easy way to improve your situation is to sell the BMW and get a more practical and reliable vehicle. Granted, that works more in favor against the rental car.
I also don't think it's a given that you'd need a rental car every single weekend. If you need a car every single weekend then owning one yourself clearly makes the most sense. It's when you only need the car occasionally that it would make more sense.
I think there is a certain amount of cognitive energy that goes in to renting something rather than owning it.
After moving to a larger city recently, I have been renting cars when needed rather than owning one. While it is far cheaper and even more convenient (4x4 for skiing, small car for city trip), the effort, inconvenience and mental awareness take a toll. The selection of the car, the strict schedule to pick it up and drop it off, the worry over damaging it (or being told I damaged it when I didn't) and inconvenience caused by system malfunctions (flat batteries or "technical difficulties" communicating with the car have happened several times) all serve to add that little bit of inconvenience for what should be a nice day out.
I think a similar problem exists with the sharing economy, there is just too much inconvenience and unless money is a serious problem it's just not worth the hassle.
$300/weekend for a small SUV (plus whatever you pay for your ride-sharing commuter car during the week). Not a great solution, especially if you're not a convenient straw man who only ventures outside his little box twice a year.
And that doesn't even take availability into consideration. What happens when spring finally arrives and everyone wants to rent an SUV to go camping on the same weekend? And then summer arrives and everyone wants to head to the shore for a few days? Will our commuter-oriented system be able to accommodate that exodus of vehicles for extended periods of time? Or will people be stuck at home because they don't own a car? I think that's the main thing people fear in a car-sharing scenario: being trapped.
It doesn't always need to be a big SUV either. There are somewhat smaller vehicles that are almost as good for a lot of activities. People are going to keep buying vehicles that they can use for most of their activities.
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