Silvercar, a new car rental service borrowing ideas, and talent, from car-sharing service Zipcar has launched at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW).
Targeting business travelers, Silvercar has one car model, Audi A4, and the app-centric system is designed to zip in and out, nevering need to interact with a person. Rates are intended to be competitive with comparable full-size rentals.
NBC summarizes the offer and TechCrunch provides a detailed review from a test rental.
The car rental experience certainly needs massive improvement, good to see some innovation.
$110 + taxes +++ per day? The TechCrunch review compares that to renting a Malibu or a Camry. No way!!!! Ok, it is an Audi but you paying for an Audi. Also, if everything is electronic without any human interaction, how do they check on any damage you may had in the car such as scratches, dings, dents, etc… You return the car, print the receipt and if there was a damage who will check on that?
yea 110 is ridiculous. My company would never allow that. Our corporate rate with national is 37 bucks a day plus tax at every US location all the time, for a full size…. which often results in an SUV in the exec aisle….
Not much time is wasted at national anyway — I dont think this is much faster and I like choice in cars actually (provided it is not impala vs malibu)
I also am very suspicious/curious about how damage is handled to the fancy Audis.
@john – I did look at a few test dates, contrary to the article, the rates do bounce around, a weekend rental was $70/day, still not cheap, but some people will value the Audi and convenience. I use National for my corporate rentals, my company doesn’t seem to have the awesome rates you get, but I too like the fun of picking a car myself, one of the reasons I use them over our other corporate provider, Hertz (that and Hertz seems to have no cars with CDs that can play MP3 files).