Decades ago, our cities used to be quiet and less congested. Travel was easy and non-taxing. Then, cars happened. And with that we have got traffic, chaos, and stress. In fact, in 2015 there were record passenger cars sold that was above 2 million units. 5,480 new cars were added daily. Sounds terrifying!
Indeed it is. But on a brighter side, this has opened a window for new businesses. Businesses that let you have a car without buying one. Popularising the concept of self-drive cars in India we have players like Myles, sZoomcar, EcoRentACar and Revv. They let you hire a car without a driver. And, so you can drive around the cities without having to worry about the cost of maintenance, insurance, upkeep of the car. That’s less of stress, may be.
To know more about how these players operate, I talked to Sakshi Vij, the founder of Myles. After getting around eight years of experience of working for carzonrent, she came up with Myles in 2013. Energetic, confident and excited to be on the scene, she says: “I am happy that finally it is time that we in India are taking this seriously. Thanks to some other players coming in and also the government moving ahead with the idea of smart cities. In smart cities mobility will play a huge part.” Clearly not wary of competition, Vij sees a lot of opportunities and plenty of growth once this plan fructifies.
Her organisation which started off with around 20 employees has now over 200. And, that is because of the 25-30 per cent share that Myles have in the market of self-driven cars. She is happy to add: “We have presence in over 21 cities and a fleet of over 1,200 cars.”
“We were clear from early on that we don’t want to own a lot of cars. So, we welcomed the existing car owners to share their cars through our platform. And today, we even let individuals to share their cars on Myles. If their car is available they put it on for making profit. If they want for personal use they take it off. So, in a way cars get shared.” That’s almost like what many of you would have thought about in the recent past. That is to invest in running your own Ola or Uber cab. That, after all, seems profitable. It saves you with the difficulty of dealing with the driver too.
Overall, such self-drive car organizations, which are coming up, let you hire a car on a daily basis with a certain security deposit and a copy of your driving license and ID proof. All that and you are done with owning a car ranging from Alto to Mercedes. At least for a day.
