Discover how to turn your parked car into a money-making machine, as HiyaCar, a new pioneering idea in car hiring, hits Bristol and Bath.
We caught up with COO Robert Larmour to tell us more about the idea that has the potential to disrupt the car-hire industry. “HiyaCar is the person-to-person car-sharing platform that lets people hire cars from private car owners,” Robert explains. “Car owners can become Sharers by letting others use their cars when they would usually be sat on driveways or in car parks, giving them the potential to make £1,000s.”
“Communities can turn their idle cars into a money-generating asset”
Car hire reinvented
Graeme, the co-founder and CEO, found the inspiration for HiyaCar through his love of cars, as Robert explains, “He has always loved his cars but grew frustrated with the fact they will not only depreciate in value, but also cost the owner thousands of pounds every year to maintain. On top of that, when trying to hire cars from more traditional sources they were always very expensive, not very convenient and had little choice.” Robert and Graeme wanted to change this, and establishing HiyaCar was the perfect way to do so.
“Graeme came to me with the notion of embracing the sharing economy so communities can turn their idle cars into a money-generating asset, whilst reducing car ownership and offering value.” This has already proven to be successful through companies such as AirBnB, and the future is looking promising for the world of car sharing.
This new concept enables you to make money quickly and with ease: simply sign up and you could be making up to £650 a week!
The innovation is good news for car owners and good news for people wanting to hire those cars, as the service should be cheaper: “I find the way technology has disrupted many of the traditional sectors very exciting,” says Robert. “In e-commerce for example, where you can be a retailer without a premises or, in some cases, without even housing any stock. HiyaCar is very similar in the way we aim to grow a large fleet of cars for our members to use but we will not have the overheads of owning the vehicles, so peer to peer will always be more cost effective.”
But what about the insurance?
Robert and Graeme knew that insurance would be of paramount importance to customers and went the extra mile to ensure that the operation would be risk free, drawing up a bespoke policy with AXA: “We partnered with the biggest names such as AXA UK for insurance and the AA for roadside recovery,” says Robert, “so that every car’s safety is guaranteed…”
“Our insurance policy really was the first of its kind.”
“Our insurance policy really was the first of its kind,” Robert explains. “We could have gone to market with a far inferior policy but we wanted our members to trust in the fact that sharing their beloved car is truly risk free.
“Our policy was brokered by Aon and exclusively underwritten by AXA UK. Other partners include the AA for roadside assistance and the IGC who have 140 specially vetted garages who can offer our members bespoke rates for general maintenance.”
The duo also triumphed in their Seedrs campaign to raise finance, which solidified their confidence in their idea: “Seedrs campaigns last for 60 days, but we were 100% funded in five days and decided to take the campaign down after two weeks. In that time we overfunded by 228%. It was great validation that the public are really behind sharing and our concept.”
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Set yourself up
HiyaCar’s website is now live so you can enlist yourself to participate in this fantastic idea if you live in Bristol and Bath. “People are able to sign up as a car owner, list their cars and earn up to £650 a week. Alternatively, if you need to hire a car for a business trip, family holiday or just for a day out then you can also register as a Driver and see what cars are available in your local area.”
With more and more cars being added to the site each day, it’s worth checking back to see whether you’d like to use this alternative solution to traditional car hire.
We would like to thank Robert for taking the time to talk to us. For more information check out HiyaCar or follow them on Twitter, @HiyaCar.
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Shona Wright
Shona covers all things editorial at TechSPARK. She publishes news articles, interviews and features about our fantastic tech and digital ecosystem, working with startups and scaleups to spread the word about the cool things they're up to.
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