They Envision a future where their cars are fully capable of real world AI, which can drive people anywhere they need to and do so far safer than a human being. Could this would be a safety inconvenience problem for them to solve, but long term? They also see the entire idea of owning a vehicle changing. They see all of the time that our personal cars are parked doing nothing as a waste when they could be out making money for us. Well today, this business exists already to a certain degree and thats through direct car rental services. There are a few different ones out there, but the main one you hear about is turo. Turo is often a great place to rent a vehicle, since you choose them through an app and can secure a particular car. Its like Airbnb, but for cars. Teslas are particularly popular on turo, so back in 2020, I started giving this business a try, and now, three years later after tons of negatives and positives Ive decided to quit the turo business today, Im going to break down all the things I experienced on turo and What things to keep in mind if this is ever something youre considering so lets, get into it and a special thanks to lectron for sponsoring a portion of this video Music. I first started experimenting with turo in 2020, with my brand new Tesla Model Y. At the time I was one of the first 2200 people to own that car, so I had a number of renters who wanted to try that car out before it was readily available.

It was pretty easy. I make sure the car is clean and charged take detailed photos on the turo app pass it off to a renter and then make a fee for the time the car is gone. It sounded like a good way to own a Tesla to review on the channel and make money with renting it out to people who also want to check out new electric cars. Sometimes it worked out great just like this. I sent it off and a few days later, I just need to check in the car which was treated nicely by a customer other times, though, I would have very specific issues and find that the business was far from passive at the drop of a hat. It could become immediately stressful. The first few things I had came with the red 2020 model Y in total. I had about 26 renters for that car and at certain times it was doing pretty well, but I was also balancing using this as my car and then putting it on turo. I also had my first turo accident with this car r. A renter was rear, ended in Bakersfield no fault of their own, but that definitely wasnt a fun call to get around 8 PM when the car was due back in an hour. They brought it back. Late fully rear ended after dealing with the accident, and then I picked that up from there, the next day figuring out how this works with insurance.

Ultimately, I went through the insurance of the at fault driver and everything was fixed with no cost to me, even though the repair was about eleven thousand dollars. Also, I was without a car for three weeks. I drove a rental Audi for three weeks and with a lot of back and forth from insurance, I managed to also get diminished value and loss of income, since this car should have been renting out ontaro for three weeks. I have a full video about that repair process linked below. It was a lot, but I ultimately saw it as a long term learning experience if I wanted to expand this business. Plenty of people succeed with a turo fleet and a Tesla turo Fleet, but Ive come to learn that it really has to be something you enjoy doing or plan to dedicate a lot of time to from there. With the model y, I was rear, ended myself, while driving in Pasadena and went through another intense 23 000 repair process, so that delisted the car from turo. Of course, Insurance also became a lot to deal with there. So I started involving my dad in this business. Hes incredibly good at Insurance, stuff and general management, so he was kind enough to handle certain things that were taking up too much of my time paid. Of course, this became especially useful when a renter had something major break in the car while up in San Francisco. Something major broke in the axle of the model Y and ultimately, it was likely damage related to a previous renter.

But of course, I wasnt able to pin it down the car was leaking fluid, making terrible sounds when driving and ended up being a six thousand dollar out of warranty repair through Tesla. The full video about that process is linked below Tesla blamed. A third party suspension install, even though it likely wasnt related, but regardless we had to coordinate that whole repair and then my dad flew up to San Francisco, picked up the car from service and Road tripped it back down to La since he was so involved by This point it was a bit less stressful, so I was seeing these as the rare things were, learning from to navigate through as we expand this business. That repair was the biggest loss the business had on the turo side and essentially negated the previous few months. Worth of rentals still, I wanted to expand so I added the 2021 plaid Model S to my turo fleet. This car was brand new and exciting at the time, so it was a good way to test a high end vehicle on turo and be able to review it on the channel. The car is an absolute blast, so I got it reviewed it and then our first rental was in November of 2021.. This car then proceeded to have tons of rentals. It went through phases but sometimes was very reasonably profitable on a monthly basis. All costs considered. I had a total of 44 trips in the model – S plaid, but the final one ending in May most of the guests in that car were fantastic.

They were incredibly communicative considerate and return the car in great condition. However, this is a very wide load to the ground vehicle. So while we didnt have any serious accidents or anything curb rash, just became a normal occurrence. This is normal in a lot of Teslas, but it started becoming normal. That curb rash would happen on that car. So wed charge renters the amount it would cost us to repair the wheel. This pretty much happened to any renter, no matter how great they were to work with. We also got some front bumper damage from someone pulling into a low driveway, as well as some pretty rough damage. When you look underneath the car, this doesnt actually affect anything and requires you to actively look for it, but its there and, of course not how the car originally came. We handled the bumper directly like we did with curb rash, instead of going through Insurance fully. That was damage we noticed after it was returned and had to ask the guest about. As for the underside of the car, we actually didnt notice it after any particular rental, so we couldnt pin down where it came from thats when we started realizing how essential it is not to just check in the car quickly when its being returned, we need photos Of absolutely everything, and even then there could be damage you cant see, like probably happened with our model Y. In any case from there I sold the red model y after the two rear, endings and six thousand dollar repair.

Amongst many other service appointments, I decided to get rid of that car and was lucky to actually get more for it than I bought it for I sold it when used. Tesla prices were insane. Around the same time, though, I had decided to expand Toro further. The Plaid was overall doing pretty well but its expensive to rent, so sometimes there there wouldnt be any renters willing to pay 200 to 300 a day for that car when it rented. It was great, but the other way to ensure the car is doing well and have it out of your hands and out of your driveway, is to make sure its getting as many trips as possible. I decided to try the cheapest Tesla I could buy, which at the time was a 2018 mid range model 3.. I bought it when used, prices were high, so I overall do regret this decision. Considering Teslas massive price drops this year, but it was my personal car for a few months until we listed it full time on turo. I was actually really impressed with the car itself, but eventually I listed that car on turo, along with the 2021 standard Range model 3 that we have so at its peak. We had a 2021 Tesla Model S, plaid 2021 Tesla Model, 3 standard range and 2018 Tesla Model 3 mid range onturo full time. I ended up having 10 trips in the 2018 model, 3 and 6 in the 2021 model 3.

Before I decided to unlist all of the cars thats about 86 trips, total that we hosted, we then were personally using our other cars, so car Tetris, as we call it, became a normal activity when wed have no renters wed stack up the cars in our driveway And then usually wed have to pull them all out to get the right car out at the right time for a rental I also had to ensure they were charged. So we had two Tesla wall connectors and then I would trickle charge a car in the back of the lineup with a normal Outlet before we go any further Id like to thank todays sponsor lectron electron makes convenient and reliable charging solutions that let EV owners charge At any charger, no matter their cars charging standard with their ccs to Tesla adapter Tesla drivers can access any CCS fast charger across the country and charge at a rate of up to 150 kilowatts, with a maximum rating of up to 500 volts and 300 amps. That means you can add up to 180 miles of range per hour to your Tesla at a CCS charger. With this adapter youll never have to wait at a busy charging station. They also make a portable Tesla charger that has a powerful dual level charging and interchangeable level, 1 and level 2 Charging plugs with a 12 and 32 amp charging Max respectively. They can charge a Tesla up to 20 miles of range per hour.

It also has a 21 foot cable for flexible installation its great for road trips and makes it easy to charge your Tesla at home. Too. Electrons mission is to make EV charging fast and reliable for all EV drivers to check out all of their Chargers and adapters and get all the latest deals head to EV, electron.com or click. The link in the description below my dad was really the one building the turo business. At this point I was paying him and he was handling check ins, checkouts communication with renters insurance issues. Issues with renters car washes supercharging. We needed for a quick turnaround and more it never was a full time job, but it was incredibly clear that this is not passive income. Here are some of the things that you have to be constantly considering when renting these cars out. First, you have to clean the car, some renters return, the car very dirty others clean, but you still have to clean it up to keep new renters happy and you have to follow turos specific cleaning policies. I found that doing this myself could sometimes take about an hour if I hurried, so we ended up taking it to hand. Car washes each time if there was a quick turnaround. We do that and drop it off on the the street for the renter to pick up via turo go. But then, if it was a longer turnaround, we found it would be easiest to just get the car washed and then put a car cover on it until the next rental.

Rentals can come in at the drop of a hat, and the car needs to be ready to go so this became the easiest. As for why we often needed a hand wash if a renter Road tripped up to San Francisco and back a drive through Rush. Definitely didnt do the trick plus wed still have to clean the interior. There. Then, of course, there is maintenance and repairs. Luckily, for me, I didnt have much other than getting new tires on the 2018 model, 3. More on that, in a minute and getting the 12 volt battery replaced under warranty, Ontario the best way to ensure that your car is getting rented as much as possible is to make it the most optimal experience possible for the customer. That comes in many forms, but one of them is by having the car ready as quickly as possible. That means the renter flies into an area realizes that they forgot to book a rental car. So they look at cars that are available within an hour or two and they find your car youll get the most rentals by having this setting on. But it means that again, at the drop of a hat, you need to have this car ready to check again for us, we use turo go, but that still means doing the final check in taking photos, cleaning, anything that needs cleaning and everything to be ready for The renter who just booked, then they arrive at the car and unlock it themselves and do the check in process through the app also.

This is why we always kept the cars charged its best for the cars overall, but then its best for doing quick turnarounds. A last minute, rental doesnt quite work with charging an electric car. Unless you have a supercharger right around the corner, we dont Toro also rates how quickly you respond to guest messages, and then guests rate you, after their trip. So its really important to do a great job and communicate well with guests, no matter when it is wed block out certain periods of time from rentals like overnight and went out of town, but each time you do this youre, potentially losing a rental. You also face cancellations so often that it really starts getting frustrated heres, the 2018 model 3. In November, we had six rentals scheduled that we were planning for and four of them canceled theyre allowed to do this up to 24 hours prior to the trip, which is very nice on the customer side, but its frustrating. If you made plans to check in that car or get it washed washed, also, if you were looking at a month of booked rentals and then two thirds of them cancel that changes a lot for the business. Of course, all of this is the cost of doing business, but its important stuff to truly consider if youre wanting to do this. In any case, one way we tried to build up our rentals was by offering unlimited miles and unlimited free supercharging.

I have referral miles in my account that are expiring in May, so I figured I may as well use these and offer them as an incentive for renters to rent from us. This seemed to work to get rentals, but then came the obvious downsides here: renters absolutely utilized those unlimited miles trips to Northern California were the norm in the Plaid, along with trips to Las Vegas, Arizona and more then, a 4 000 mile trip plus and a model. Three: yes, a trip from Los Angeles, 2 000 miles east up a little bit and then back in a 2018 Tesla Model. 3.. There technically is no rule against this, so the only thing we could have done to prevent this would have been to cancel their rental. However, we were a five star All Star host by this time, and a cancellation by us would have affected that score. So we didnt cancel slit. This ended up being our worst wrencher yet and one of the final ones that led to me Calling it Quits. That brings me to the horror stories for many people. These will be stories that make you question why anyone would ever try this business for others, theyll sound like normal things, when dealing with people. For me, they added up to make me realize that this business isnt for me, as I mentioned, we had the rear ending of the model Y and the repair via Tesla Service in San Francisco.

For that customer we also covered their flight home since the car broke on them. Those renters were great to deal with, though they just had unfortunate circumstances. Some renters, though, were a different story. I had a renter book the model S pretty far in advance. They kept giving me their flight schedule as it changed, and I found this to be a bit odd, but also didnt think too much about it. Since I specifically didnt offer airport pickups or anything like that, thats an additional option, you can add for an extra fee from certain renters per usual. It should have been hands off once I checked in the car, so I checked it in and then my wife and I headed down to San Diego to get away for a couple of days. The car was set to be returned after we got back. However, I had an inkling and reminded the the renter that they would be picking up the car at my location, to which they adamantly responded, that they were picking the car up at the Ontario Airport, where I was dropping it off for them. I told them this wasnt the case and after a lot of back and forth with them being incredibly frustrated, they shortened their trip and never picked up the car. I was dealing with all of this, while we were in San Diego trying to take some time away. This is a big reason why I finally got my dad involved.

The worst part was that this customer left a scathing one star review, based on their misunderstanding of what they paid for. Luckily, we were actually able to get this review removed by turo because we showed them our correspondence, which clearly never says we were going to pick them up at the airport, so their review was just false for the model 3 one renter was driving back and called Us saying that their personal car had been broken into, they said they parked their car on the street where they picked up the model 3 and then, when gone, their car was broken into stolen and found on fire about an hour away. For this it turned into an arson investigation and we still dont know the final result, and I cant even talk about it that much in detail super weird scenario that there, but luckily our car was fine, still not sure that their car was ever really stolen. Then we would have certain weird questions like one renter who booked their trip told me they were a fan of my channel asked for a discount because of that and then canceled when we didnt offer them a discount. Another was an hour into their trip and asked: how do I open the sunroof this was concerning, since there is clearly no sunroof on the Plaid Model S. The last two experiences were the big ones I mentioned earlier that we had a renter take the model.

3. 2000 miles away to the southeast, their trip was long and eight days into their trip, while still at their original destination. They told us that the car had low tire pressure warnings. We double checked our check in photos with the tires clearly inflated, as they should be, but figured these tires were going to be replaced soon anyway, so wed cover it. We instructed them how to take care of it offered to cover Tesla roadside assistance offered to pay for the tire if they got to a Tesla Service Center, Etc. Their response was essentially, it was this way when I picked up the car, this isnt my fault. Well, theyre 2 000 miles away, so clearly it needs to be taken care of in order order for them to drive back safely thats. Besides the fact that their tire was fully inflated upon pickup and our photos prove it, they were insistent that this just wasnt their fault and they didnt really want to do anything about it. Thats when we started checking in on the Tesla app seeing them driving all around heading another 700 miles north and all of that, with the tired displaying dangerously low pressure. We contacted turo to help out and essentially got it fixed by refusing to extend their trip, which they had to do to make it back in time unless they got the tire fixed. They got it fixed to turo standards and then returned the card dirtier than Ive.

Ever seen a vehicle, it was truly incredible how dirty this car was, and I just laughed when I saw it and was happy. It managed to be in one piece. It took. Two car washes an ozone generator running for a couple of hours and work for myself before it was back to normal and smelling normal. Then we noticed that the bumper had new damage they had clearly rear, ended, something and of course claimed that the damage was there when they picked up the car, just like the low tire pressure. Luckily, that was all on the turo side of things, so that repair is actually happening right now, since this was the renters fault, it was handled through turo insurance and has actually been a very easy process. Happy to report that the last rental we had was a renter in the Plaid Model S we dont check in often on the Tesla app, but we saw that they were driving very fast. This was the Plaid Model S after all, so I know that people are going to be doing launches and more in that car, but then we saw this. They were driving on a normal Highway 145 miles per hour. According to turo quote, you can consider speeds of 20 plus miles per hour, us or UK or 20 plus kilometers per hour Canada over the speed limit as excessive. They were doing this three or four times over turo also adds guests who book a vehicle through turo? Can face consequences for engaging in prohibited uses, including excessive speeding? They tell you to contact the guest, ask them not to and then provide evidence if they keep speeding.

We did this and ended up having to turn speed limit mode on. I was very hesitant to do this because they rented a plaid Model S, and unfortunately, this also puts the car into chill mode, but it was necessary. 145 is racetrack speeds and clearly against hero guidelines. Also, if it were on a track, racing is specifically prohibited as well. After this, we had one more plaid rental scheduled who canceled. So I just decided. We had a good run on top of this. The cars just werent profitable anymore, The Plaid had lost Steam and neither model 3 ever was truly profitable. When all costs were considered, the amount of additional rentals we would have needed sounded like a lot of work and its just not something Im interested in pursuing further. I know what steps to take to help it grow and work, but I just dont want to do it. So, after a couple more videos Im going to be selling the 2021 plaid Model S and 2018 model 3.. I wish I had sold these when the market was higher, but the timing just didnt align so now Im having to get rid of these cars at current used prices. That said, the turbo earnings werent nothing some months. They were great and heres a breakdown of our earnings throughout 2022. thats, a total of 28 509 in Revenue earned from turo in 2022, with the majority of that coming from the Plaid Model.

S sometimes it feels like people share these type of earnings, while only considering one layer of how it works like wow, twenty eight thousand dollars in a year, thats amazing. Well, in reality that Revenue was mostly spent on car payments. Car insurance car washes maintenance and employee pay. It also ate up a lot of my time and stress, but it did work out well for me personally, in tandem with my channel, it helped to offset costs and allow me to review these cars after significant mileage. It served its purpose for me. I gave it a try and Im going to be focusing my efforts elsewhere this year. That was my experience with Tesla and turo and trying to build a turo fleet, but I know plenty of people who do this successfully and are fully invested in it, so if youre still encouraged to try it after this video, more power too Im just sharing my Experience and hopefully it helps people thanks to everyone who rented from me, and I hope you had a great experience in the meantime. If you want to see the latest Tesla news, you can check out that video linked up here or in the description below thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5pI8UZZfes