The Genius Car – Real life adventures in the share economy

I have three cars now on Relay Rides and inquiries from multiple people.  Some dates overlap with others and the car can only be rented to one of you.  The early bird gets the worm.  Some of you weren’t sure about your travel plans, some asked a question or two which I thought I answered.  I’m now preparing a owners manual which will hopefully make the process easier for both of us.  It’s been hard buying a car, changing insurance, delivering and pricing three vehicles that are in use over 80% of the time I haven’t had time to adjust my pricing.  I do now and my prices are going to go up.  I’m not the only relay rides car owner who is doing this.  Relay Rides finally made this very easy to do.  In the past it was virtually impossible to accomplish, based on a recent software upgrade all owners can change there price per day very easily.

Hertz, Avis, Enterprise, and all of the big car companies do this automatically.  They are designed to extract every ounce of revenue from you that they can.  That’s there job and they are very good at their job.  We all know that demand for cars goes up in the summer and around certain holidays.  Now Relay Rides lets us charge for that.  I have already raised my rates over Labor Day Weekend.  I’m starting to get ready to raise my rates for the weekends in July and August.  I now have three cars on Relay Rides and they are all being rented over 80% of the time.

I’m writing this blog to tell fellow owners what I am experiencing.  Most important though is I am writing it for my potential renters who have reached out to me already and have not booked the trip yet for whatever reason.  Book it quick.  I’m giving all five of my potential requests and inquiries 24 hour notice to book or accept the trip because prices are going up.  This is not bait and switch this is the marketplace.  Even if you don’t end up booking you are welcome to come back and book at the higher price.  You are also able to use another Relay Rides owner.  Compare us to any of the commercial rental car companies.  They can’t compete on price or diversity of cars.  Best of luck and enjoy Colorado.

Well the situation is still incredibly fluid.  I even bought a new car to list on Relay Rides.  I might have the only AWD Luxury minivan to rent in the state of Colorado.  I bought this van because it was literally a diamond in the Relay Rides world.  They don’t make AWD minivans anymore except for the Toyota Sienna.  My MDX is potentially for sale or it might be turned into an uber black car.  Using it on Relay Rides at these rates is not a win win scenario.  The potential problem is the two future rentals in the month of July.  The second person has been much more proactive.  Now that I understand her situation I have a win win scenario I believe.

First off Relay Rides shouldn’t penalize me or the renter.  My plan even makes more money for Relay Rides.  As I said to my lovely wife Rebecca yesterday, “My nickname is Mr. Genius nor Mr. Prettygoodlooking.”  Now that I know what the renter is looking for I really understand their situation the King of Empathy is on the case.

She does not necessarily want the MDX for it’s awesome handling, fun to drive, and stylish good looks.  She needs a car that can hold a husband and wife, bunch of kids, luggage, and pick up and dropoff at DIA.  Once the customer read my blog and became aware of the situation we both started working on backup plans.  She found another minivan that she liked and was going to talk to her husband about.  She sent me a link.  I was kind of sad it wasn’t my minivan.  I sent her a link to mine and she thought it looked really nice as well.  Thank You!

I don’t think that minivan was even listed when she made her original booking with my MDX.  I’m not even sure how many kids she has or the ages, but here is what I am thinking.  This is as new parent who only has one baby who is 19 months old.  If you have 2 or fewer kids I’d go with the MDX.  Three kids would be the MDX or the Toyota Sienna.  Four i’d go for the Toyota for sure.  If we just had the universe of those three vehicles I’m trying to think which on the customer would want.

My first choice for them ironically isin’t either of my two vehicles.  I’d go with the other Toyota Sienna minivan.  Now if it was between October and April that other minivan is the last choice.  Both of my cars are better choices.  This is simply because my cars both have all wheel drive.  Do you want to be the parents who make there kids get out of the car and push on vacation?  This time of year the AWD is not a factor.  What else is a big factor for this decision?  The pick up and drop off.  I have all sorts of complications and and issues.  Although if the MDX or the Sienna rental goes through.  I will do my best to make the experience go smooth.

The other car is where he blows me away.  He is offering curb side pick up and drop off with his vehicle.  That is worth something.  I have done that in the past and will do it sometimes in the future, but it’s extra hard for me.  I have a fleet of cars on Relay Rides to manage, drive for Lyft and Uber, and I’m a stay at home dad with a baby during normal business hours.  I had two pickups in a row where the flight was delayed over two hours.  That wrecked my day.  The customer should want the other minivan just for the drop off and pick up.  That option cost the most, but it’s certainly the newest and nicest vehicle with the best pickup and dropoff.

So Relay Rides can offer to let the customer cancel for free, or if they are automatically charged an $18 cancelation fee credit their account.  The customer is super happy.  Relay Rides makes more money because a more expensive vehicle is renter,  the owner of the other car is excited because he has only taken 2 or 3 trips.  (wonder how long that curbside dropoff keeps up?), the renter gets exactly what they want with no uncertainty,  the owner me gets to keep my rating intact, create a happier customer, the business Relay Rides makes more money.  How about it people?

This also lets me rent my minivan.  I have 5 requests floating out there.  Three of which will interfere with the potential MDX screwed up trip.  I’m trying to make it right people.  Throw me a freaking bone here someone.

The Offical Genius Car, the Acura MDX has potentially come on the market.  It’s sad and I hate to sell it and I may not sell it, but I will likely have to.  This sucks so bad and I really, really don’t want too.  Life and circumstances change and I’m just not rich enough to have an extra $20,000 laying around the house.  By Wednesday July 7th I will likely have either

1) Brokered a 2013 black leather/black exterior MDX to somebody.  It is potentially to good of a deal to pass up.  This car qualifies for Uber black and it is potentially a great deal.  It is already a good deal.

2) Buy this MDX for myself for my own Uber black car.  I’m 90% sure that this is the direction my life is going.  I’ve got 95% of the plan worked out and it is at the operational stages of planning. I still really need to talk to Seth and Joshua  I’m at the point of looking for potential drivers and figuring out the commission splits.

3)  If I don’t buy this MDX for myself, auction closes Tuesday 10:00 a.m MST then I have to figure out if I need to look for another one or get this car “dipped”.  For the non auto informed and count myself among you until about a month or two ago.  Thank you Mark Justice and Breck for pointed me out to the idea of dipping and directing me in the right direction.  The MDX won’t be back from it’s back to back rentals (BOO YAH Jim Cramer) until Wednesday morning.  I’ve already got two people lined up to look at it on Wednesday.  If somebody offers me full price of what I am looking for do I need to sell it anyway?  I am an autobroker and an entrepreneur in the automobile and “share economy”, why should I have a schools love and infatuation with a car?  If I don’t sell it Wednesday can I get it dipped and dry by Saturday morning when it’s next Relay Rides car rental in Denver for a luxury SUV?

What is either really good or really bad depending on how things turn out is this car has future rentals booked.  Since just June 25th and July 7th at 8:00 am this car will have generated $667.50 with three different rentals.  The problem is it has two future rentals it will be out July 11th through the 18th and later on in the month from the 23rd through the 27th.  If the MDX is able to complete these rentals it will earn another $427.25 for me or it’s new owner.

This might be the first sale in history of automobiles where it comes with a revenue stream.  Call Wikipedia!  Now a few things would need to happen:

1)  The person who buys the car would have to agree to sign up for Relay Rides and agree to rent the car at this price.

2)  The currently scheduled renters would have to agree to keep the same terms and the pick-up and drop-off points need to work for both parties.

3)  Relay Rides would need to cooperate which I’m sure they would.

This post has a wide variety of target audiences.  The most important are the future renters and Relay Rides.

Nothing has happened yet, but I want to give as much notice as possible to all parties.

I sent the message through the Relay Rides system Monday evening to the renter.  If I was more organized or worked harder I probably wouldn’t of waited this long.  I’m freaking busy raising a baby in addition to all of this other crap.  If I really, really wanted to get a hold of him I could send a text directly to his cell phone.  I could even call, but hey I haven’t reached out this whole time to him.

Tuesday night rolls around and Rebecca comes downstairs.  I’m trapped like a rat in the cage.  There is no exit except the stairs and even if I could run away I don’t have a car to run off too.  So I tell her the story at least how I remember it happening.

I explained that during the course of talking about these things about wanting to get the car back earlier made it easier for me to say yes.  We had a gentleman’s agreement to get it back earlier.  I know I was playing with my pricing structure and he potentially if he would of rebooked the trip it would of cost him more.  Well I don’t think he’s an idiot so I kept the reservation.  It was going to be record length trip and the highest paying trip.  I’m also excited about the idea of not having to do any of these damn deliveries.  I also have a super secret plan that I’m not telling Rebecca about.  I said I can go back and look but right now it really doesn’t matter because we have a legally binding agreement that says he has the car until Thursday 2:00 theoretically he can show up at DIA at 2:00 on Thursday.  Rebecca is super big on legal contracts and I am as well. (another blog post)

I told her I think he is actually in or flying to California and driving one of his cars back here.  This dude is racking up frequent flyer miles.  I think he’s gone from Hawaii to NCY, NYC to Denver, Denver to who the hell knows in Cali to driving back here.  I’ve driven that stretch of I-70 and I-15 seven out of the last ten years on my World Series of Poker adventures.  It is beautiful country, but a hellish drive.  Cell phone coverage sucks in a lot of spots.  I also think it has the longest stretch of Interstate highway without a gas station.  Marc Brown has a hellish hotel story from some town in Utah.  I told her if he is driving there is nothing I can do plus hell maybe it was Wednesday.

Since I am the King of Empathy I told Rebecca that I know exactly what you are feeling and thinking.  Here is what you are thinking and probably in order

1)  So you’re thinking that the car could come back Thursday afternoon.  That means that you have to take an Uber Wednesday morning you are stuck at work all day and don’t get to see Hope at lunch.  Then you have to take an uber back home Wednesday and this process happens again on Thursday.  However you can have either the car back or likely me and Hope bringing you back home Thursday night.  So that will be fun.

2)  Your think so you get the car on Thursday afternoon … WTF.  Why do I even bother to get it back now.  The workweek is almost over.  My husband is an idiot.  Exactly what you didn’t want to happen just happened.  Yes Rebecca you are also correct that you have no car Monday or Tuesday next week.

3)  You are also super pissed off and think that I’m an idiot and that this is also costing us money.  It is costing us money.  It is $15 each way to work.  That costs $30.  Almost 95% of our rentals have been $25 per day or less.  This doesn’t even include the Relay Rides cut.  I know Rebecca is thinking that I’m almost deliberately trying to piss her off and be a financial moron at the same time.  I need to write a blog about game theory and my pricing model.

Rebecca is amazed at how well I can read her mind, “Like I said I am the King of Empathy.”  This has all been worth it.  WE CLOSED OUT THE MONTH ON A COMMA.

Tomorrow – I find the car and the king of empathy figures out the retrieval.

So it’s June 30th the last night of the quarter and I’m not sure if this is my wife asking me or if it is me asking myself.  In our experience with Relay Rides I’ve been pretty good to great at managing it.  The one rule for the household is don’t let both cars leave at the same time.  As long as I don’t violate this rule the homefront remains fairly tranquil.  I rarely violate this rule, but I decided to this time because things looked so sweet.

After countless experimentation and game theory testing I felt I found the perfect price points for Relay Rides for both of the cars.  I’m mostly concerned with the Hyundai Azera because it is the one rented most often.  I also use the Acura MDX for Lyft, Lyft Plus, Uber XL, and Uber Select.  That car makes money when it’s not doing Relay Rides.  It actually makes a lot more with me doing other things.

The Acura MDX got a request at the new full price and the correct pricing model.  The extra bonus was the fact that I can pick up and deliver at DIA when Rebecca is not working.  This is a super awesome rental and of course it’s accepted.

The potential problem came in, and I knew about it in advance that was there was a request for the Hyundai Azera that went from June 16th all the way to July 2nd.  That was going to be an amazing amount of time gone.  The longest trip so far.  It would be a big time earner for the Azera.  The problem was the overlap at the end.  We are going to be without any vehicles for a four day overlap.  The only other time we’ve had two cars gone at the same time Donna Henderson was out here with her smoking hot Hyundai.  This was going to be a challenge.

We are going to be without wheels for the weekend, which just means we are stuck together all weekend and really won’t be leaving the house.  The worst part though is Rebecca is having to take Uber’s into work.  Note with the recent price drop in Lyft in Denver, Colorado those would be Lyft’s if taken today.  Rebecca is one of the most easy going people in the world, after all she married me.  A few things that she doesn’t like though are; strangers, talking, paying for anything, and I’m not sure how excited she is about going to work in the first place.  Taking Uber’s to work combines all of these horrible things for her.  Since I am the king of empathy I understand her pain.

What I know about the renter though are a few things that intrigue me.  It is a wife and husband with two kids.  What is so exciting is that they are relocating to Boulder, CO from Hawaii.  This triggers a few big things for me.  The first is that I’m a licensed Property and Casualty agent in the state of Colorado.  When people move out of state that means new insurance and a host of other services.  Since they are coming from Hawaii this means they might be needing a new car.  Mike Henderson, auto broker to the rescue.

During our negotiations with both trying to get the car back sooner and finding other business opportunities that he’s actually going to be purchasing a car very soon and I think I can get the car back Tuesday night.  I accept the rental.  The drop off is a little challenging as they have a delayed flight.  Traveling cross country with two small children and the flight is delayed means don’t try to sell anything and these people won’t be real happy.  Plus Relay Rides is kind of a wierd thing anyway.

I’m not being proactive or trying to get a hold of Steve when he is out here.  I’m busy with a bunch of stupid stuff and have a lot on my plate.  I’m not being proactive and eventually I send him a message through the Relay Ride system.  I’m waiting to hear back to find out when/where to pick up the car.  It’s also my chance for a five minute pitch.

I just hope we get it all worked out before I hear Rebecca, “Where the hell is the car at?”

To be continued …