Without a car by car: a comparative review of car sharing services in Moscow / September 2017
I like to drive a car. But I donât have a summer cottage, I donât do car tourism, I donât have to go to work every day, and I live 400 meters from the metro station. In recent years, public transport in Moscow has been working better and better; and besides, I love the bike, and in the period from May to September itâs easier to go 5-10 km from the house on two wheels. It turns out that I donât need a car.
Moreover, according to my calculations, it cost me about 7000 p / month, taking into account both gasoline and periodic maintenance, insurance, washing, changing tires, paid parking and repair work (and also paid parking got to my house). For such an amount, it is quite possible to buy a travel card, and from time to time, take a taxi if necessary.
But in fact, some routes in Moscow by car get faster. Sometimes you need to go around on business in two or three different places, and on the subway with buses it may take a whole day. So I was pleased to find that in Moscow not only carsharing appeared, but also actively developed.
Only at the end of 2014, the Moscow authorities announced their intention to develop car sharing, and today already six such private companies are already operating in the city. These are Anytime, Delimobil, YouDrive, Car5, BelkaCar and Rentmee.
Ideally, car sharing is a good thing. It reduces the number of cars on the streets, while short-term trips are on average cheaper than a taxi.
Now 2,500 cars of car-sharing companies are driving around Moscow. To the authorities, apparently, the experiment seemed successful - they are already talking about plans to increase this amount at least twice. In 2015, the figure of 10,000 pieces was announced.
In the article I will look at a commercial B2C car sharing, in which the company buys cars and then rents them out. There are also other types of car sharing - for example , when a company rents their cars from people whose cars are idle and leases them to other people (P2P car sharing). Well, carpooling , of course.
How it works
In general, the conditions and method of using cars for all described car sharing are the same. First you need to download the mobile application of the selected company and register. For registration it is necessary, in addition to contact details, to take photographs of documents (passport and driver's license). Some companies require to sign documents live - either in their offices, or in the offices of partners, or via courier.
After successful registration, you can use the service. We open the application, and on the map we see the location of all the cars. Choose the one you like and book it. Almost all companies have a free booking period of 20 minutes. During this time, you need to have time to get to the car and inspect it for external damage. If you did not have time, the pay wait counter will turn on.
Further through the application, we send a signal to open the car. We check the condition of the cabin, the availability of the necessary documents (in the glove compartment, as a rule, lies insurance, the JTS and the fuel card). We confirm that everything is in order, and the application sends a signal to unlock the car. You can wind up and go. Almost all carsharing machines are equipped with automatic transmissions (there are also robotic gearboxes).
If your route consists of several crossings with short breaks, the car is put into standby mode during parking - you turn off the engine, get out of the car, and send the necessary command through the application. The doors are closed and the alarm is activated. The car is waiting for re-opening, and the cost of a minute of use is significantly lower.
If the car runs out of fuel, then you can refuel the car at authorized gas stations with which the company has a contract. For the time spent, money or extra minutes are usually credited to the account.
All the machines I tested had USB connectors connected to a multimedia system - you can listen to your music from a USB flash drive, or you can charge a smartphone. The second is more necessary, because with a discharged smartphone, neither complete the rental car, nor call support will not work. Unfortunately, my smartphone in all the machines refused to charge with the screen turned on (when the navigator was working on it) - the charging system of the standard system is too low.
Also, unfortunately, in none of the machines of the companies I tested, there was no holder provided for the smartphone - and in fact it often has to be used as a navigator. I hope someone will come up with this.
Their common shortcomings can be noted that in the cars often the washer tank is empty. If you start from home, you can take some water with you and refill. In other situations, this can be a problem - and in winter it will become even more acute.
You can find a free car using the application map, or you can register at several companies at once, and use the services of aggregator applications â the number of cars available to you and the probability of finding a car nearby will increase. Recently, by the way, in the Yandex.Transport application also added a display of available cars - this option needs to be enabled in the settings. Yandex knows about almost all car sharing except YouDrive.
Service cost
Prices for the use of all services are about the same: about 8-10 rubles per minute of use, and 2-2.5 rubles per minute of waiting. You can ride, as a rule, within the concrete ring. In standby mode, the car can wait for you anywhere, but you can only complete the rental in the permitted area. As a rule, this is the territory within the Moscow Ring Road, and a place permitted for parking. You can leave the car in a paid parking lot - the main thing is that it is open. At the same time in the standby mode for parking you do not have to pay - all firms work under an agreement with Moscow.
In fact, different companies advertise the price of the service as 6-8 rubles per minute - but this is only for tariffs without KASKO insurance. A year and a half ago, not all firms offered insurance, but then a very unpleasant scandal occurred. One of the clients of âDelimobilâ got into an accident, and the company demanded payment of almost 600 thousand rubles from it. After wide publicity in the media and social networks, the company's requirements dropped sharply - but sediment remained. Now all companies offer either to save on payment and travel only with MTPL, or switch to CASCO, make secure, but pay more.
But each company, of course, has its own nuances of work, which I want to talk about in more detail.
Anytime
The first car sharing service that appeared in Moscow - it has been working since April 2013 . The fleet is quite extensive - KIA Rio, Hyundai Solaris, Skoda Octavia, and BMW 116i. In total now in the park just over 500 cars. This month they plan to add another Audi Q3 - although why carsharing, the service âcheap to get from point A to point Bâ, we need luxury brands, I did not understand. For luxury brands, by the way, you need to pay for parking.
In addition, the only one among the competitors, the company offers to rent a Renault Kangoo for the transport of goods - this can be convenient in the event of a small move. For her, too, must pay for parking.
To register live documents do not need to sign, just upload a photo of documents. You can ride in Moscow and at a distance of 200 km from the Moscow Ring Road, and complete the rent - within the Moscow Ring Road, at airports and in several Moscow region cities.
Developers are invited to an API with information about available cars.
Experience of use
Registration went pretty quickly and without problems. But to start renting and finishing was not as easy as that of other companies - after using the car, you need to take two of his photos, from the driverâs side, and from the passengerâs side, while, as it is written in the instructions, the numbers must be visible . How to take a photo of the car from the side so that the numbers were visible, I did not understand. Therefore, to two photos from both sides added a third - with a number.
All other companies are asked to take a photo only in case of damage, and only before the trip. If you are in a hurry somewhere, this photo session is very inappropriate. And before renting a car, you can get acquainted with the latest photos from the previous tenant, and if they coincide with reality, then you can not take new photos.
Actual in the winter time item "warm up"
The application works without fail. Uses normal maps from Yandex and draws the shortest route to the booked car. But the rest of the functionality compared with other competitors, he is lame. There is no opportunity to blink headlights and give a beep - and it helps a lot to look for a car. Once I couldnât find a booked car, I walked around the block and almost despaired, but only then I saw that the car was parked near the entrance of a house standing on a high hill, so high that the overpass led to it. By sound, finding a car would be easier.
In addition, it is too slow. Too. Slow. So slowly that the animation is usually not visible on those elements on which it should be (for example, on the sliders), and after pressing the button for two or three seconds nothing happens, and itâs not clear whether you clicked on it or missed.
Tariffs
Cars are divided into low-cost, medium and luxury brands - depending on this, the tariff also changes. The cheapest are Koreans. In addition, each tariff is offered in two versions - âalways on the moveâ and âcomfortable parkingâ. The first option is slightly more profitable if you drive more than you wait in the parking lot, the second one is vice versa: now driving / waiting costs 8 p / 2 p at the first and 9 p / 1,5 p at the second.
The nightly standby rate is valid from 0 to 9 am - at this time, waiting is free. As it strikes twelve times, you can find a car, put it at the entrance, put it on standby, and leave on it no later than 9 am without paying for parking.
All cars are insured by CASCO, and, if the company is to be believed , without any deductibles and driver's payments in case of an accident. There is a very complicated discount system for rent, depending on the rating, which you don't even want to delve into.
Refueling of vehicles must be carried out on the fuel card, which lies in the glove compartment along with the rest of the documents, at authorized gas stations.
Delimobil
All cars - Hyundai Solaris sedan. 1,200 units in Moscow, and the service also has a branch in St. Petersburg, where 100 machines are still working.
Experience of use
1,200 cars (that is, about half of the total number of all car-sharing cars) - but some magic happens with them. Every time I needed to rent a car, I found that there wasnât a single âdelimobilâ nearby. Minimum - the next metro station. More than ten times on different days I tried to rent a car, but I managed to do it only once. At the same time, when they are not needed, they constantly catch the eye.
Poor card
I donât know how to explain it - even if this is the most popular service and cars are often used, they should be periodically next to me according to statistics. So this feature of this service has remained a mystery. The company has the most cars, I registered in it before others - and I used its least park.
Spelling errors on the interface elements? Seriously?
The application is terribly buggy. It flies constantly - at least once per rental. When used, it creates the appearance that the user always remains logged in; but as soon as you try to book a car, the application writes, âauthorization errorâ. You have to press "exit", then re-enter the password, and if you forgot it - use a reminder. This ghostly login is very annoying - as long as you mess around with a password, you can book a car. In addition, the application uses a completely vague card.
In case of detection of damage during acceptance of the car there is no possibility to report this through the application - you have to call the operator and describe them in words.
Tariffs
8 p / min without hull insurance and as much as 3 p more in the case of connecting hull insurance. Waiting - 2.5 R / min. Daily rent is also possible - 2000 p / day, which is beneficial if you are going to drive more than three hours. True, the daily rate includes only 150 km of run, and then the tariff is 8 p / km. You can ride within the Moscow region, complete the rental - within the Moscow Ring Road or outside, but at a distance of no more than 1 km from the nearest metro station.
Refueling of vehicles must be carried out on the fuel card, which lies in the glove compartment along with the rest of the documents, at authorized gas stations. For the time spent, the company compensates you for 15 free minutes.
YouDrive
The fleet consists of Smart Smart, Quadruple Smart, and Mercedes-Benz A-Class. True, you won't be able to use any of the machines right away - already users with a high enough rating can take Smart Turbo models. The rating should be recruited on a complex system, in fact - often and use the service often. In Moscow, according to data for 2016, YouDrive employed 300 cars, and the company has a branch in St. Petersburg.
Experience of use
Smart - awkward car. For the first time I ran into him closely, and was somewhat discouraged by some kind of common toy and frivolity. There is no key in it, it turns on and starts from the button. But in order to start it, it is necessary to keep the brake pedal pressed - I did not know about it and accidentally guessed after a couple of minutes of futile attempts, when I was about to call for support. I tried to look in the instructions, which hung in the pocket behind the driver's seat - unfortunately, it was in Turkish (!) Language.
Two small ladies' handbags will fit into the back shelf with ease, motor insulation peeps through the vents of the rear bumper. And at traffic lights it shuts down the engine, so after pressing the gas you have to wait until the engine starts again and we finally go. And Smart for four is generally a mysterious phenomenon. "Let's make the car as small as possible, and then increase it."
But, of course, there are advantages. The famous "perpendicular" parking, and turning radius like a bicycle. Well, with a sense of size, there are no problems. And yet, yes - the sunroof, but not opening, but panoramic. In addition, there are Smart cabrios in the park - not yet relevant, but by next summer it will be just that.
But move on to the service. I was pleased that the company had the fastest and easiest registration. I downloaded the application, sent a photo of the documents - within a few minutes you were approved, you can use it.
But developers need to put two. First, the application functionality is very poor. You can book a car, see its position on the map, and open the door to start using. Come and finish the rent. And that's all. The route to the car application does not draw. It is impossible to blink and ping. If at the time of acceptance of the car you saw damage, you need to select the âdamageâ option, after which you are redirected to Telegram. That is, you must have this messenger on your phone (they cooperate, perhaps, with Durov?) At the same time, what to do next is not obvious - in Telegram there is only a blunt bot. And if you go back, then the only option is to tick off âI see no damageâ and follow on.
It turned out that the bot needs to send a photo of the damage. And then - go back, tick off "I see no damage" and follow on. Very sloppy.
Backend developers are a solid deuce. You can not use the application, at least once without seeing the message that "the server is not responding." Once in a while it happens that you try to open the doors of the car, they open, but the message about it does not reach the application (it is lost somewhere in the way of the application - the server - the car). Therefore, the doors are open, and the application has not yet begun rental. And once there was a reverse situation - I wanted to put the car on standby with my things inside, closed it - but in fact the doors did not close. It is good that I was reinsured and pulled the door handle. I had to call in support, and the consultant somehow, having sent a second command, closed the door (not the first time!).
Tariffs
From 8 R / min for the trip and 2.5 R / min for the wait. The cost depends on the model of the car and even on the type of gearbox (maximum - 12 r / min). By default, the CASCO is not connected - when it is connected, the tariffs increase by 1 p / min. CASCO connects with a franchise of 15,000 p.
There is a unique mode âtransfer of the car to another clientâ - it can be turned on outside the rental completion area, and while the car is not occupied, it is charged with 0.5 r / min from the account.
Night parking, without payment of waiting, YouDrive works from 20 to 8. But there is an unpleasant nuance - on weekdays it is free only outside the âgreen zoneâ in which you can complete the rental car. Anywhere you can stand at night for free only on weekends.
You can go on YouDrive up to 250 km from the MKAD (in St. Petersburg - 250 km from the Ring Road).
Providing cars with fuel from YouDrive is special - you can leave the car even with an empty tank. Special people drive with canisters and fill them right on the spot (although the Smart tank has 38 liters). If itâs quite a disaster, you can refuel and send a photo of a check via Telegram - the money will be returned to the account.
Car5
An unexpected disappointment was waiting for me when I tried to register with this service. I uploaded a photo of all the documents through the site, and they asked me to print out and sign two agreements live, then scan them and add them to my personal account (the alternative is a signature at the company's office or via courier).
I did all this, after which nothing happened for a couple of days - and then suddenly the system stopped letting me into my personal account. The password was correct, but when I entered it, the page of the site reloaded, and I again found myself in the ânot logged inâ status. For a week I attacked a support service with calls, in which they said, âbut everything works for us,â and promised to âsend the information to the managers.â Only a week later, at the next call, they told me: my registration ... was not approved by the security service!
So I have two questions left - why I, in fact, were rejected (there was no answer to this question), and could you think of a less original and more informative way to report this? Unfortunately, for understandable reasons, I can tell nothing more about the application and the service.
I am not unique - rejection messages can be found on the Internet . Apparently, the company does not really need new customers. All of them support service says that the reasons for refusal are not disclosed to anyone, and advises to "try again later." But Einstein also said that an idiot is a person who hopes to get a different result from repeating the same action. I did not see any sense in concealing the reasons for refusal and in repeated attempts.
According to information from third-party sources, the company's fleet consists of Datsun mi-DO cars, Hyundai Solaris and Volkswagen Polo.
Tariffs
The companyâs lowest fare is for Datsun Mi-Do cars. Rent - 5 p / min, waiting - 1.5 p / min. Night waiting from 23:00 to 7:00 is free. The company also offers tariff packages for 1, 6 and 24 hours, with a small discount. Daily rate provides a limit of 200 km.
The cars are insured under the hull insurance with a deductible of 15,000 rubles, and in the event of theft, theft or death of the vehicle, the company charges 90,000 rubles from the client.
Refueling of vehicles must be carried out on the fuel card, which lies in the glove compartment along with the rest of the documents, at authorized gas stations.
Belkacar
The car park consists of a Kia Rio in the back of a hatchback. This is very convenient - you can carry any cargo by opening the trunk and spreading the rear seats. A pair of shovels and a twisted bundle the size of a carpet would fit there.
Experience of use
Horrible card
The most convenient and rich application functionality. Its main and huge minus is a wretched map (worse only in Delimobil). After Yandex maps it can be very difficult to navigate the terrain in the map of this application. I wouldnât reinvent the wheel on the spot and the developers would take a ready-made, convenient solution (or this is a ready-made solution - itâs just miserable).
But everything else is well thought out. After booking a car, the application shows the shortest route to it. All steps when using the service are obvious. When accepting a car, each type of damage is marked with its own checkmark, and if necessary, you can take photographs of defects. To make it easier to find a car, you can make it blink and buzz by pressing a button.
Tariffs
Everything is a little easier than the competition - 8 p / min trip, 2 p / min - waiting. In addition, there is a limit on the mileage - after 70 km per day, the fare of 8 p / km is included. These rates are valid with a standard hull insurance with a deductible of 30,000 rubles. If you want to halve the franchise, you can switch to another fare in the application, but it will cost 10 rubles per minute of the trip. In addition, they promise to charge no more than 2000 rubles a day from the client (but if the limit of 70 km is exceeded, the mileage charge will be charged anyway). You can ride throughout the Moscow region.
Refueling of vehicles must be carried out on the fuel card, which lies in the glove compartment along with the rest of the documents, at authorized gas stations.
Rentmee
New participant in the car sharing market. Appeared quite recently, and the car park is still very small. Cars - Hyundai Solaris. It seems that tariffs are profitable - but there are nuances. Lot. Large.
Experience of use
Unfortunately, I could not wait for the end of registration. After downloading all the documents, several days have passed, and the status âin processingâ has remained. It is noticeable only that the application is very much like that of BelkaCar.
On the main screen there is a button, by clicking on which there is a call to the operator of the service - apparently, all the problems of the car, like in âDelimobilâ, need to be described by voice. By the way, here I first encountered the example of using the toll-free number 8-804 - ...
Tariffs
It would seem that if you appear on a market in which there are already several competitors, study their proposals and make them better. But why do better, if you can do worse - apparently, the service organizers thought so.
Tariffs, of course, a little more profitable than the competition. 7 p / min for the trip and 1.5 p / min for the wait. A very large mileage limit is 1000 km. There is a daily rent - 1900 p / day. However, in the second case, you will not be paid for the fuel, and the mileage is limited to 300 km. Well, free waiting before booking - just 10 minutes, and not 20, like everyone else.
With the payment system - trouble. The company does not trust its customers so much that at the beginning of the reservation the account balance should not only be positive - it should be at least 500 rubles. (We reach up to 100,000 registered users, collect 500 rubles each from the nose, for a total we have 50 million rubles in the account at any given time. Not bad).
Interestingly, according to the rules of using the service, during the lease the balance should not go into a minus. How will the car behave when the balance is zeroed - will it stop in the middle of the road, block the steering wheel or start yelling with an alarm? From the rules it is unclear. The technical support informed that âas long as they do not have direct debit, a positive account balance is necessaryâ, and in case of its full expense the operator will call you, and the multimedia system of the car will warn about this with voice messages.
With dressing, too, not everything is transparent. If you use a tariff where the company pays you for fuel, then when refueling the company takes into account the readings of the tank fullness sensor and the average cost of gasoline. If the amount received by you for the account of gasoline seems unfair to you - you will have to prove it to the company by sending her a photo of the check. With daily rentals, you pay for the fuel yourself, but after the end of the lease, the difference in the amount of fuel in the tank before and after the lease is taken into account.If it remains less, you will be charged for gasoline, if more - compensate.
Another drawback is that Moscowâs paid parking is not paid for all cars. When booking a car, the system informs whether it has been paid for parking - you need to remember to keep track of it every time. This fact is also indicated on the car itself by the corresponding icon. He is - parking paid. No - except waiting be kind and for the parking deposit. Terribly uncomfortable.
But, according to the media , the annual subscription for parking for carshed cars costs only 20,000 rubles. At the same time, a simple motorist who wants to buy a subscription allowing him to park anywhere, anytime, will have to pay out 250,000 rubles a year. By the way, a subscription to the round-the-clock parking in your area (if you are registered in the apartment and the car is recorded for you) costs 3000 rubles per year.
The worst thing is that there is no CASCO insurance at all. True, the rules state that "The Lesseeâs liability limit for damage to the Car or its loss in the absence of violations by the Tenant of the Agreementâs terms is 50,000 r.â But in the rules of work on the site only proudly reported that the cars are insured by OSAGO. And how, interestingly, they could not be insured, if this is a requirement of the law?
The uniqueness of the service is not in the fact that it exists both in Moscow and in St. Petersburg - but in the fact that you can drive a rented car between two capitals. Per-minute billing allows you to go as much as 1000 km; for 8-10 hours of driving, the rental price will be about 4000 rubles, but the fuel will be paid by the company. Daily rent does not allow to go further 300 km - after that the payment for 5 r / km is included. That is, when you go to St. Petersburg, you get the same 4000 rubles, and you will have to pay for the fuel yourself. In addition, the territory of use includes the capitals of neighboring Moscow regions. You can drive to Yaroslavl, Vladimir, Ryazan, Tula, Kaluga and Tver.
Carenda
The company promises to enter the market in September and become the seventh car-sharing company in Moscow. By the end of this year, it plans to provide customers with 400 Ravon R2, Hyundai Solaris and KIA Rio cars. Moreover, the rental rates for Ravon will be at the minimum level for the market - 5 rubles per minute. Ravon are Uzbek cars (not just an Uzbek assembly, but a real national brand), which look like a deep restyling of the Daewoo Matiz.
Conclusion
Carsharing, by experience of use, turned out to be necessary, useful and convenient service. And, apparently, this opinion is shared by the other clients of the market. An abandoned car after half an hour is almost certainly someone will pick it up. But this means that if there are no cars near you, then in half an hour something may change.
In principle, now they are almost enough, and almost always you can find a car at a distance of no more than 10 minutes on foot. But there is both space and demand for the expansion of the park; Director of "Delimobil" Stanislav Groshov, for example, argues that the optimal number of "common" cars is about 0.05 - 0.1% of the number of residents of the city. For Moscow, it is 7000-15000 units, 3-6 times more than it is now.
Carsharing promotes short walks in the fresh air (this is not a car that stands at the entrance). And, besides, the more cars in a car sharing - the smaller they are on the streets and in the courtyards. In addition, your car is a car wash, repair, maintenance, change of shoes twice a year, security, fussing with buying and selling ...
Perhaps carsharing in its current form will die out in 10-15 years, when the roads are filled with robotaxi . In the meantime, the transition period is a good way to reduce the congestion of megalopolises.
For those who love numbers more letters
| Company | Cars | Region | Tariffs *
| Night standby
| Franchise
| Refueling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anytime | 500 | Moscow and 200 km from Moscow Ring Road
| 8/2 | 0: 00-9: 00 | 0 | fuel card
|
| Delimobil | 1200 | Moscow and region
| 11 / 2.5 | - | 10,000 | fuel card
|
| YouDrive | 300 | Moscow and 250 km from Moscow Ring Road
| 9 / 3,5 | 20: 00-8: 00
outside the green zone | 15,000 | not necessary
|
| Car5
| 200 | Moscow and region | 5 / 1.5 | 23: 00-7: 00
| 15,000 | fuel card |
| Belkacar | 850 | Moscow and region | 10/2 | - | 15,000 | fuel card |
| Rentmee | 100 | Moscow, the region, the capital of neighboring areas, the route Moscow-Peter
| 7 / 1.5 | - | not | check payment
|
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