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That's not even the worst of it. Not even a million-dollar policy would save you from the effects of renter having a serious accident: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/101013...

In the above case, the survivors sued the car-sharing company, the estate of the (deceased) driver, and the vehicle owner. I would not expose myself to that kind of liability without very well established law around it.

Let's assume BMW owns the car and insures the car and puts their plates on the car. You then have no association with that car when you are not driving it.

Pretty sure BMW would manage this.

Perhaps manage in the sense of providing legal representation, indemnifying, etc. However, I would still be concerned with having to deal with the hassle (if nothing else) of dealing with a lawsuit--especially if there were the remotest possibility of criminal charges related to maintenance or whatever.

http://www.carnextdoor.com.au/

These guys already do it. Don't get me wrong I had exactly the same sentiments as yourself and even aired them during an interview with the company. But that being said they seem to be growing steadily as people will do anything for an extra buck and hell the range of cars available is crazy. I encountered everything from beaten up old for lasers to late model Mercedes SLK Coupe's. (disclaimer: I did some work for them doing insurance checks/photo's of vehicles a year or so ago, something that was done at regular intervals, every 2-3 month or so depending on how heavily used the vehicle was/owners preferences)

And just imagine doing it with property which often costs ten to one hundred times as much as a vehicle! A sort of AirBnB for houses, if you will...

Just think of the unbelievable number of ways that could go wrong:

Renters could mess up a house in any number of ways, from making a mess with food and drink, to damaging parts of the interior, to having accidents and causing serious damage. Are owners expected to do a full damage assessment pre/post every rental? Nobody will accept any liability otherwise.

That's overlooking any "party like a rock-star" issues which can ruin the contents.

Think of all the nefarious activity a renter could get up to. Domestic abuse, public order offences. Drug dealing or trafficking. Congratulations, your address is now on a watchlist.

Imagine the disputes over how much electricity has been used, or how much milk is left in the fridge. Let alone what type of milk a renter puts in there.

There's no way any ordinary insurance policy would cover this kind of scheme. Your premiums can, and should, skyrocket.

Then contemplate the practicalities of all this. A renter will have to travel from their home to the location of the property, then presumably return home. If that requires payment for transport, who pays?

Don't get me wrong; I can't wait for the future where nobody owns a home and we all live in autonomous coffin hotels that are efficiently utilized, monitored and cleaned automatically as needed. But this halfway house is a nightmare.

TL;DR: The concept of renting property to third parties has existed for a long time, and the problems are well understood.

Very easy to fix. Monitor the driver's behavior in terms of the way they use the vehicle (accelerate, brake, etc), and charge them accordingly. Let them know ahead of time that you will do doing this, and that they could be liable for thousands of dollars if they don't drive well. Same goes for the interior, make them liable perhaps via insurance.

> Very easy to fix. Monitor the driver's behavior in terms of the way they use the vehicle (accelerate, brake, etc), and charge them accordingly.

Car2go (Smart) does exactly this... only they disguise it as eco-score (there's some trees on your dashboard and according to your driving style they grow or shrink). Given my last car was an 1994 BMW 318is, it took some time until I managed to get my driving style under control until I got my license yanked away (but that's another, totally unrelated story...)

My ex uses GetAround here in San Francisco for her SmartCar.

Interestingly, the car has been stolen twice. I don't remember if it was stolen by GetAround users or not, but IIRC I don't think so. The car was recovered both times within a day or so thanks to the GPS unit that is installed in the vehicle.

This isn't the first time AirBNB for cars has been done. Turo/RelayRides has been doing it for a few years, and most of reports I've heard have been positive. It involves the same magnitude of concerns you get with renting out a home:

> Renters could mess up a home in any number of ways, from making a mess with food and drink, to damaging parts of the interior, to getting in accidents and causing serious damage. Are owners expected to do a full damage assessment pre/post every rental? Nobody will accept any liability otherwise.

> Think of all the nefarious activity a renter could get up to. Domestic violence, noise violations. Drug dealing or trafficking. Congratulations, your home is now a a meth house.

Don't get me wrong; I can't wait for the future where nobody owns a vehicle and we all travel in autonomous electrical vehicles that are efficiently utilized, monitored and cleaned automatically as needed.

There is still at least one problem left - peak usage.

There is no time at which all cars are in use. So there this isn't a problem that prevents that future vision from improving on the present.

This is my thought also but the question is how big is the ratio between total number of cars and the cars in use during very limited time frame (mornings, evenings).

My observation is in the place where I live that around first morning hour the people who drive are the people who would use the car whole day. So we can ignore them in the estimation.

Then comes the bulk of the people who use the car to just get to work. I would estimate that around 1/2 to 2/3 of the cars are in the move during one hour.

I would assume that sizeable proportion of the current public transport users would also consider to use cars when they are readily available.

So I would assume that the number of cars needed to provide reliable automated cars service instead of private cars would be close to the number of current cars.

What's the crux of this concern?

If it's environmental, we can assume cars in the future will be all-electric, powered by nuclear or renewable energy sources.

If it's congestion, firstly we should see a dramatic reduction in the number of accidents. Automated vehicles will make far more efficient use of limited road capacity, and with no need for parked cars to litter urban streets, we will have greater capacity.

More importantly, we can just regulate against congestion. Cap the number of cars in an area at any one time, if you want, or implement dynamic pricing. That will go a long way to eliminating unnecessary journeys during peak times.

What's the crux of this concern?

Price or rather TCO. That is, if the amount of cars needed is the same as today, then why should people prefer communal self driving cars instead of personal ones?

Of course same cars could be used during the day, the question is just how much it would bring the cost down.

That will go a long way to eliminating unnecessary journeys during peak times.

Or eliminate the idea of communal self driving cars. There are no unnecessary travel when you have to get to the point A on time.

I think the typical fear actually goes the other way -- that infrastructure won't be able to handle increased peak demand, leading to a lot more gridlock/pollution, longer commute times, etc. when more people are driving.

Reducing the need for parking in city's should have a massive net positive impact. In time we should see self driving electric cars on electric highways which can mean unlimited range and vastly reduced pollution. Even if all you do is drive one person to and from public transit that lets a wide swath of family's go one car without public parking fees.

> There's no way any ordinary insurance policy would cover this kind of scheme. Your premiums can, and should, skyrocket.

There is even another issue with accidents and luxury cars. [1] If you own a luxury car and it's in an accident the value drops pretty significantly vs. a non luxury car (where it still drops of course). With a rental apartment you have to worry about damage but not damage that would cause you to have a significant drop in the resale value.

[1] Recognizing this test is starting with Mini of course however the idea from reading is they would expand to other parts of the brand.

You have obviously never heard of ZipCar or Getaround.

Never heard of Getaround, but ZipCar is a very different business model.

This is about people subleasing their own vehicles, not a traditional car hire service.

ZipCar is like a hotel, and this proposed service is like Airbnb.