Airbnb for cars - why you need to know there's a better way in Australia

If you're one of the people who has thought "I wonder if there's a way to rent my car to earn some extra cash?", or you're looking to borrow a neighbours car and save on car rental, now there's an "Airbnb for cars" here in Australia.

There are over 18 million registered vehicles in Australia, and only 17 million people of driving age, so that’s over a 1:1 ratio of cars to people, crazy right?

Not only that, according to data on how Australians actually use their cars, most cars sit idle over 90% of the time. It’s hard to argue with that when you walk down the street of a weekday and see how many cars are sitting there catching leaves and gathering dust.

You need a car for those couple of times when public transport and human powered travel doesn’t always quite work out. But what you don’t need is a car sitting there all the time costing you money in insurance, servicing, registration, and the biggest cost of all, depreciation; just for the couple of times you use it each week.

How to join a community of owners and borrowers sharing cars

Now there’s a reliable way for car owners and borrowers to share the cost of owning a car, just like Airbnb, it’s called Uber Carshare. Over 1,800 cars are already on the platform being used by over 100,000 borrowers in Australia, and it’s growing every day!

Car owners make their cars available for borrowers when they are not using them, and borrowers pay car owners for the time borrowed and distanced travelled, which is tracked by a small GPS tracker installed in the car.

If you have a car, you can find out about renting out your car here. If you don’t have a car and need one to get around, you can apply to join as a borrower and find a car here.

If you want to see how it all works, take a look at the below infographic.