On June 2nd, Uber announced that it will be trialling its world-first car rental service in Australia. The service is called Uber Rent and has been launched in association with a car rental company CarTrawler. Using Uber Rent will allow its users to hire a car on a rental basis for interstate road trips.
Uber’s car rental service has been launched after research from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries indicated that car sales in Australia dropped by 48.5% in April 2020 as compared to the same time last year [1].
More about Uber Rent
At first, Uber Rent will be available only in Brisbane for only 50% of regular Uber users. The Uber car rental service will then be made available in Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth from next week on a randomized limited basis. The feature, for now, is also not available in other capital cities such as Canberra, Hobart or Darwin as Uber first wants to see how the service performs.
An Uber spokesperson said that as this is a completely new product and hasn’t been tested internationally ever before, they want to see what the response is before they expand it to rest of the cities in Australia and to other users on the app.
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How to hire a car using Uber Rent
Note that users will be able to use the Uber Rent service only if they are a part of the initial rollout. To use the rental service, the Uber app needs to be updated. Once the app is updated, the ‘Rentals’ option will be available where users will find a search page provided by CarTrawler. After selecting the vehicle, the user will have to add the date of journey and the pickup and drop locations. Once the details are added, the ride will be booked.
There is an additional benefit of riding with Uber Rent. Users are to receive 10% of the cost of their first rental back as Uber Credits. Additionally, for every car rental after the first ride, the user will get at least 1 Uber rewards point for every dollar spent.
General Manager of Uber Australia and New Zealand, Dom Taylor says that while many Australians will drive to a wine region or explore the mountains in their own car, not every Australian has access to a private vehicle. He adds that at Uber, they believe everyone should always be able to get around, even if they don’t own a car, and hiring an Uber Rent car is one of the many ways of helping people do just that.
Source
[1] Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (2020) “New Vehicle Sales Results for April 2020” [Online] available from: https://www.fcai.com.au/news/index/view/news/622 [accessed April 2020]
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