Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by paulsutter 9 days ago
What I want is a way to rent a car for an hour or two, so that I can leave shopping items or child seats in the car while making stops around town.
5 comments

AAA had car-sharing as a service nine years ago, but it and many of its competitors have closed:

https://oaklandside.org/2024/07/25/gig-will-shut-down-its-ca...

I assume you mean a self-driving vehicle but if not: https://www.zipcar.com/cities
I forgot about ZipCar. The downside in a place like SF is having to deal with parking it. I seem to recall dedicated ZipCar spots in the distant past ....
I think you're looking at $60 an hour which is not horrible (estimating Waymo avg is 3 rides / hour x $20 per ride)
Like Waymo meets Zipcar?
That actually sorta? exists! Vay uses remotely teleoperated vehicles in Vegas to drop off your rental, then take it away once you're done.

https://vay.io/

This is the best combo possible. It feels like the ideal trade-off between the autonomy of car ownership and the flexibility of ride-sharing. I've been hearing about this concept for literally over a decade now.

I hope it expands quickly to the rest of the US.

You're kidding. This cannot be real. I can't wait to try it, if it is somehow real.
That's actually a really cool idea. I like it. The best part is, it doesn't even need to find nearby parking or anything. You can just tell it in advance that you'll be leaving the grocery store in eight minutes.