Do you want to start a business in the transport industry but looking for something different than a taxi booking or moving services? There is a brand new startup idea catching wind nowadays, Car Rental App Business.

Unlike a taxi app startup, you don’t need to manage drivers and worry about giving the best ride experience. Your customers will be their own drivers. All you need to do is add interested car owners to your car rental app database and/or partner with existing offline car rental services like Turo, Hertz or Getaround

With annual revenue of $30 billion in the US itself last year, Car rental industry is growing in colossal size. With the advent of car rental app development in the car rental market, this amount is predicted to double in just a couple of years.

(Source: Auto Rental News)

Top Car Rental Companies of 2020

The top car rental app companies each own three child companies under them.

Enterprise Holdings: They own the biggest three Alamo Car Rental App, Enterprise, and National Car Rental.

Avis Budget Group: They own Avis, Budget Car Rental, and Payless Rentals.

Hertz Global Holdings: They own Dollar Car Rental, Hertz, and Thrifty Car Rental.

How well are Car Rental Apps like Turo Doing?

Turo Car Rental App

Turo was found in the year 2009. With investments of almost $216 million from the auto company ‘Daimler’ and insurance company ‘Liberty Mutual’. Recently in April of 2018, Turo accepted on having 230,000 vehicles listed on its platform within four countries with a new partnership blooming with boutique rental car companies.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company

Last year’s valuation of Enterprise was around $16 billion. The top three car rental companies National, Alamo, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car and all owned by Enterprise. They are worth more than half of the total car rental market in the US.

Uber Car Rental Service

Uber, the taxi service giant, announced on 11 April 2018 that it is partnering with Getaround, a San Francisco based startup worth $88 million through investments received from various companies including Toyota.

Don’t be unnerved by these large numbers from apps like Turo, Enterprise, and other rent a car businesses. The car rental industry’s competition is still very less in this market, and you can definitely be David to Turo’s Goliath.

How Does Car Rental App Business Work?

It’s much similar to taxi services and yet easier. When the users only need a vehicle for their short or long trips without the driver, they go for a car rental model. Most of these car rental services are for friends and family trips. Which means holiday seasons are the busiest time of the year for this industry.

These car rental businesses offer cars from station wagons for a large family to high-end luxury and sports cars, all for private use. It doesn’t mean that you need to own all these cars. Your car rental app startup just needs to have a database of car owners and rental businesses that offer these cars. You work as a mediator through your car rental service app.

Cost of a Car Rental Trip

All the maintenance of the car and costing is looked after by the car owners.
The costs incurred for ongoing travel like fuel consumption, toll tax, etc. are paid by the user.
Your investment in this venture is only building and maintaining the mobile app and holding an office to deal with the mediation.

You just offer an online portal for these renters and rentees to communicate and for that, you get a commission from each deal. You and the vehicle owners decide the percentage of commission over rentals.

Building a car rental app has immense potential to grow and prosper as a stand-alone business.

How to develop a Car rental app?

To build an app, you need a technical mobile app development team. You can hire such companies to build, maintain and periodically update your mobile app.

The beauty in the app making is that these apps are very similar to existing online taxi service apps like Uber and Lyft so an Uber-like app development company can be easily transformed and customize the app according to your needs and specification.

Such Uber-like Clone apps have a basic structure of an ideal taxi service app. With proper tweaking, you can build your own on-demand car rental service app today.

Most Important Features to Have in a Car Rental App

Vehicle user

Sign up/Login to Manage User Accounts
Renter Profile
Search Option with Advanced Filters
Pickup and drop off location for the vehicle
Ever Updating Car Listing
Details Regarding CarModel, Looks, Comfort, etc.
Multiple Payment Gatewaysfor User
Review of Vehicle Conditions by Users

Vehicle owner

Sign up/Login to Manage Vehicle Owner Account
Rentee Profile
Trip Completion/Cancelation Status
Trip Fare
Payment Received
Push Notification (For Both Parties)
GPS Integration in the Car

Admin Panel

Admin Dashboard Panel to View and Operate Business
Payment Management
Reporting and Analytics of All Deals
Managing Fares and Commissions
Interactive Statistics to Stay Updated
Full Control of User and Owner Profiles

Advance Car Rental App Features

There are many advanced features that you can add as per your app development budget. Some of these features are

Find and Unlock Available Cars Directly withWireless Technology
Giving AAA-type Road Assistance Service
Giving Map Points to Nearby Gas Stations and Motels

Benefits of Developing Car Rental Service App

Building a car rental app will benefit your business in such ways that you would’ve never witnessed before. To give you a factual and proper idea, here are some of the benefits of opting for a car rental app development

Real-Time Vehicle Tracking

Offering an optional setting to the customer to let the app live track the location of the car for the security of the user, is a handy feature when traveling through highways and going long distances. The users will be very thankful to have such a car rental app feature.

Getting Higher Visibility

In this day and age, when everybody is on the internet, having your startup exist on the internet gives you higher visibility leading to more customers and a higher revenue stream. Also, most of the people that look for a car to rent usually search online, so having a car rental app on the phone is easier for them.

Auto-Pilot Business

Building a self-sustaining app helps the business to grow on its own. As no negotiator is needed to make direct contact with users or car owners, the working becomes automatic. The user contacts the car owner and finalizes everything. Your app has to just keep running smoothly.

Conclusion

Starting a Car rental business is a brilliant idea that if built correctly, can yield a lot of success. This business once setup grows on its own, giving you more time for improving your business model instead of trying to maintain the current one.

If you find an excellent team of top mobile app developers, half of your work is done. Your search for the best car rental app development company ends at Excellent Webworld.

How to Build a Car Rental App like Turo or Hertz?