The company’s Peer-2-Peer Car Sharing program invites 26,000 customers in six cities in the United States and London to rent their vehicles out to other drivers for short-term use.
David McClelland, Ford Credit’s vice president of marketing, said that customers can rent out their cars for as short as an hour or for as long as a week, or they can rent their vehicles out for an entire day.
The program is designed to help Ford Motor Co.’s customers offset the costs associated with owning their vehicle. A six-month pilot is being offered to 14,000 customers in Berkeley, as well as San Francisco, Oakland, Chicago, Portland (Oregon) and Washington, D.C.
Ford Motor will work with EasyCar Club in London. Those who want to rent a car can go to the EasyCar Club site and search for vehicles nearby and then book online. The keys to the vehicle are collected and when the renter is ready to return the vehicle, they drop it off at the same location.
Customers in the United States will use the ride-sharing company GetAround.
More and more auto companies are jumping aboard and getting involved in the ride-sharing industry. Two years ago Zipcar was bought by Avis for $491. Enterprise runs CarShare and AG runs Car2Go.
Aside from getting in on the ride-sharing market, Ford recently announced that it has a new electric bicycle, called the MoDe: Flex, which is its third eBike.
