Students needing a set of wheels at UCLA have the new option to rent cars from fellow students through a car-sharing network introduced to campus last week.
Through the service, called Wheelz, students rent out their own vehicles to classmates without cars for an hourly or daily fee.
Wheelz’s CEO Jeff Miller launched the company, which lists Zipcar as an investor, last fall at Stanford University. Miller came up with the idea after doing research for a previous company that found most cars sit idle for 23 hours a day, said Travis Tharp, general manager of the Southern California branch of Wheelz.
Students set the rental prices for their cars, which normally ranges from $8 to $12 an hour, Tharp said. Renters get about 60 percent of the profit from the rental fee.
At Stanford, the average car owner has been making about $200 per month, Tharp said. Those who put their cars into the network more often, especially on weekends, have been earning closer to $500 per month, he added.
The service initially expanded to UC Berkeley and the University of Southern California, Tharp said. On Friday, it was launched at UCLA.
Part of the reason the service expanded to UCLA is that while only 14 percent of students have cars on campus, most people need a car to travel around Los Angeles, which leaves students with few options when trying to explore the city, said Ashley Yang, an account executive for a public relations firm that represents Wheelz.
Brooke Wities, a third-year nursing student, said she would consider lending her car to the service, largely because of the average payoff that has been advertised.
“I’m a poor college student,” she said, laughing.
But some students said the money was not a strong enough incentive to rent out their own cars.
Madelyn Skinner, a first-year undeclared student who has a car on campus, said she probably would not rent out her car because it would make it less accessible to her.
“I always feel weird about other people using my car,” she said.
Wheelz, however, goes through several steps to try to ensure the car’s safety. Tharp said.
Cars are insured with a comprehensive, $1 million insurance policy once the renter enters the car, which is three times the coverage of Zipcar, Tharp said. He added that under California legislation, personal insurance will not be responsible in peer-to-peer car sharing.
The Wheelz sign-up process also tries to ensure that drivers are qualified and safe, Tharp said. Potential users must enter in their driver’s license information, and currently only official university emails are allowed.
He added that Wheelz then runs a driver’s license check ““ students must have a year of driving experience and no major violations within the past three years.
After having booked a car, the student will receive a text giving the car’s location 15 minutes prior to the reservation. Students then use a Wheelz member card that allows entry into the car when held up to another card in the car’s windshield. The card can be mailed or picked up from the Office of Residential Life or Il Tramezzino in the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Inside the car is a kit with the key, Tharp said.
While Zipcar serves a similar function, Alex Attala, a first-year undeclared humanities student, said she wouldn’t rule out using Wheelz if other students found it credible.
“If I had a friend tell me about it and they had a great experience, I would sign up,” she said.