guardian.co.uk, by Mark King 12 December 2011

Two of the UK's best-known entrepreneurs have unveiled a venture that will allow motorists to rent out their car when they do not need it.

The car club venture has been set up by the easyJet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in conjunction with the lastminute.com founder Brent Hoberman.

It will be launched next year under the easyCar brand and will allow people to use smartphone apps to book slots in their neighbours' vehicles. This will give them a cheaper alternative to traditional car rental and help people with cars to make money from renting them out. The car club aims to test the first 1,000 cars next spring in the London area.
Haji-Ioannou said the new scheme "could prove to be the future of car rental and ownership in cities of the future".

He added: "Rather than having to buy the cars to be rented and pay the ownership costs, this business model relies on the fact that there are plenty of under-used cars on the road already and that is lazy capital that can be put to work again."
With the economy in the doldrums, Hoberman said 2012 would be "the right time" to launch the scheme.

Car owners will be able to set the rental price of their car and when it is available to be hired, easyCar will insure the vehicles when they are hired out and they will be fitted with automatic entry and tracker systems.
The company claimed its new business model was also greener than traditional car hire, citing figures that show car sharing could get 10 cars off the road for each vehicle contributed to a club.

Car owners will be able to rent out their vehicles when they are not using them under a scheme launching in London in 2012.
Launched by easyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou, and Brent Hoberman, co-founder of lastminute.com, the car club will allow members to rent out their own vehicles when they do not need them.

The scheme will be a subsidiary of Haji-Ioannou's existing online car rental firm easyCar, which will offer the car-sharing service alongside its traditional hire vehicles. Car owners who sign up to rent out their vehicles will be able to set the price themselves and specify when it is available to be hired.

Haji-Ioannou said customers will be able to use a smartphone app to book slots in their neighbours' vehicles, giving drivers a cheaper alternative to traditional car rental and car-owners a new way of generating cash.

Car owners' vehicles will be insured, and fitted with an automated car entry and tracking system, which means owners will not have to be present at the time of rental. Those looking to hire a car will be able to find cheap vehicles nearer to their location than traditional car rental sites.

Haji-Ioannou said: "Rather than having to buy the cars to be rented and pay the ownership costs, this business model relies on the fact there are plenty of under-used cars on the road already, and that is lazy capital that can be put to work again."

EasyCar also championed the green credentials of the scheme, claiming every car shared is estimated to get 10 cars off the road and reduces personal car emissions by more than 40%.
EasyCar is not the first company to launch a car-sharing service. WhipCar launched in April 2010 with a similar business model, allowing motorists to register their car to rent for anything from a few hours to weeks at a time to people in their neighbourhood.

EasyCar has not released further details of exactly how the scheme will work, but interested car owners and renters can pre-register on the firm's website.

At WhipCar, acceptable vehicles must be no more than eight years old, have a valid MOT and road tax, existing insurance, and be clean and in good condition. Rental charges are paid into the owner's bank account each month after WhipCar has deducted 15% commission.
Renters also have to register with the site, and WhipCar checks their age, licence details and whether they have any convictions. They pay the agreed hourly or daily cost, plus a charge for fully comprehensive insurance on the vehicle and a £2.50 charge, which goes to WhipCar.
The easyCar Car Club is the latest in a mini-boom in community-based pooling and renting services. They include:

• Rentmyitems – if your lawnmower sits unused for 29 days in every 30, or you have a travel cot you hardly use, this site puts you in touch with someone who will pay to borrow it. Some users are listing cars alongside other smaller goods. Overall, however, there isn't much listed yet.

• CampInMyGarden – a patch of grass can be turned into cash if you're happy to have campers in the back garden. Homeowners around the country are asking about £10 a person a night for spaces.

• YourParkingSpace and ParkatmyHouse – your unused driveway or garage could be someone else's perfect parking space, and these sites let you find them. Homeowners with spaces near London stations are offering spaces for upwards of £7.50 a day.

• Storemates – make money out of your unused space by finding people who have stuff to store. This seems to have limited appeal to homeowners – on the postcodes we searched the most we came up with were five results, but many returned nothing.

Research published by Santander Mortgages reveals that homeowners are generating an average of £182 a month from renting out their spare rooms, while website EasyRoommate said the flatsharing population reached 2,851,000 in 2011.