Ford is entering the car-sharing arena.
The company announced today that it will launch a pilot car-sharing program in six U.S. cities — including Portland — and London that will let select Ford owners rent out their vehicles to other people. Ford’s finance arm, Ford Credit, is operating the program and the company is partnering with car-sharing startup Getaround for the service.
The idea is to let drivers with Ford Credit-financed vehicles offset their monthly vehicle ownership costs by renting out their cars to others for temporary use. Ford CEO Mark Fields described the new program as the “Airbnb for cars,” Forbes reported.
General Motors announced a similar program three years ago with RelayRides, another company similar to Getaround. Other car companies are also launching their own car-sharing services, from BMW’s DriveNow to Car2go, the fast-growing Daimler AG-owned company.
Ford, which launched 25 mobility experiments this past January, last month in London also announced GoDrive, a smartphone-enabled service that lets you pick-up and drop off one of 50 cars spread across 20 locations.
Speaking of new transportation innovations, Bloomberg has a great read today that details how Uber made its way into Portland.
