You see the ads everywhere now, or at least I do. Turo. They call it like the “Airbnb for cars” and it makes you wonder. When you go to rent a car now are you even looking at the old places like Hertz or Enterprise or are you just popping open this app. It seems like a grate idea on the surface, just rent a car from some regular person instead of a big giant company. But does that mean the big companies are acctually in trouble? Has Turo really made a dent in their business, I mean a real dent not just something they talk about at meetings.
I’ve been thinking about this alot lately becuase travel is just weird now. Everything is an app. You dont call a taxi you get an Uber. You dont book a hotel you get an Airbnb. And now you dont rent a car from the counter you get a Turo. It feels like the whole world changed and maybe the rental car companies just got left behind, still standing at their big counters with the long lines and the laminated maps nobody uses anymore.
So lets really dig into it. Is Turo this big giant killer or is it just another option that looks shiny and new but has its own set of problems. Its probably not a simple yes or no answer, it never is. But its interesting to look at what’s really going on.
First Off What Even is Turo Compared to a Normal Rental
So the basic idea of Turo is pretty simple. Its what they call peer to peer car sharing. That means regular people, like you or me, can list their own personal car on the Turo app and rent it out to other people. If you got a car sitting in your driveway not doing anything, you can make some money off it. And if you need to rent a car, you can go on the app and instead of getting a boring silver Toyota Corolla from a rental lot, you could rent your neighbors cool Jeep Wrangler or a fancy Tesla or even some old classic car for a weekend.
This is way different from the traditional model. We all know how that works. You go to the Enterprise or Avis website. You pick a “car class” which is just a vague description like “Mid-size” or “Compact SUV”. You show up at the airport or their office, wait in a line, sign a bunch of papers, and then they hand you keys to whatever car they happen to have in that class. Usually its not the one you wanted, its just “or similar”. That “or similar” has gotten all of us. You wanted a Ford Explorer and you get a Nissan Pathfinder, its just how it works.
Turo completely flips that. You book the exact car you see in the picture. The specific 2022 white Tesla Model 3 with the black rims. You are talking to the owner, the “host” they call them. Not some employee at a counter who doesnt really care. This personal touch is a big part of what they sell.
The Good Stuff People Love About Turo
There’s a reason Turo has gotten so popular, its not just hype. There are some real benefits that people are grabbing onto.
The biggest one is probably the selection. Like I just said, you get to pick the exact car. This is huge for a few reasons. Maybe you are thinking about buying a certain car, like a new Bronco, and you want to try it for a few days not just a 15 minute test drive. You can go on Turo and find one. Or maybe you’re going on a special trip, like a vacation to the mountains, and you want a big all wheel drive SUV that you know has good snow tires. You can message the host and ask. You cant do that with Hertz. They’ll just tell you “all our SUVs are all-season” and wish you good luck.
Or maybe you just want to drive something fun. You’re going to Vegas for a weekend and you want to rent a convertible Porche. Good luck finding that at a normal rental counter, and if they do have it, its gonna cost a million dollars. On Turo, you can probably find one from some guy who loves his car and rents it out to help pay for it.
Then theres the price. Sometimes, Turo is just way cheaper. Not always, and we’ll get into that, but sometimes it is. Becuase its just regular people setting their own prices, you can find deals. A car owner might just want to make a little extra cash, they arnt a big corporation with shareholders and huge overhead costs for airport lots and shuttle buses. So their prices can be lower. Especially if you are under 25. The rental car companies charge insane fees for young drivers, like 30 or 50 bucks a day. Turo is way more reasonable with that, so for younger people its almost a no brainer.
The pickup experience can be better too. Sometimes. Some hosts will deliver the car right to you at your hotel or house. Or you can do a “contactless” pickup where they just tell you where the car is and you unlock it with the app. No lines, no counters, no shuttle buses. That sounds pretty good when you just got off a long flight.
The Bad Stuff That Makes You Miss Hertz
But its not all perfect. If it was, the rental car companies would be gone by now. There are defnitely downsides to Turo and their pretty big ones.
The biggest problem is that its not a real company, its just a platform for regular people. And regular people are not always reliable. You might book a car for your big family vacation, and then the day before, the host cancels on you. Maybe their car broke down, maybe they just forgot, maybe they got a better offer. Who knows. Now you are stuck with no car and rental prices are through the roof becuase its last minute. That almost never happens with Enterprise. They have thousands of cars. If one breaks, they just give you another one. Turo doesnt have that.
The quality is all over the place too. That car that looked so clean in the pictures? Maybe the owner is a heavy smoker and the car stinks. Maybe the check engine light comes on the minute you drive off. Maybe the tires are almost bald. The hosts are supposed to keep their cars nice, but Turo isnt checking every car. Its a gamble. With a traditional rental, you know you’re getting a pretty new car, probly with low miles, that has been cleaned and inspected. It might be boring, but its reliable.
And then there’s the fees. Oh man the fees. Turo loves to show you a low daily rate, like “$40 a day for a Jeep!”. But then you go to checkout.
Trip Fee: This is Turo’s fee for just using the platform. It can be a huge percentage of the rental cost.
Protection Plan: This is the insurance. And this part is super confusing. Your personal car insurance probly wont cover you. Your credit card that usually covers rental cars? Most of them will not cover Turo becuase its “peer to peer sharing” not a “rental company”. So you pretty much have to buy Turo’s insurance, and it can get expensive if you want the good one with a low deductible.
Extras: Want unlimited miles? Thats extra. Want them to deliver the car? Thats extra.
Cleaning Fees: If you bring the car back and the host thinks its not clean enough, they can hit you with a big cleaning fee. And what “clean enough” means is different for every single person.
All of a sudden your $40 a day Jeep is costing you $110 a day. Sometimes its still cheaper than Hertz, but sometimes it ends up being more expensive. You just have to be really careful and read everything.
So Are the Big Guys Actually Hurting?
Okay so to the real question. Is this hurting Hertz, Avis, Enterprise and the others. The answer is defnitely yes. It is.
You can just look at the numbers. During the pandemic and after, Turo’s growth just exploded. People were scared of public transport and wanted to drive, but rental car companies had sold off alot of their cars to survive. So there were no rental cars, and the ones you could find cost a fortune. Turo stepped right in. All these people with cars sitting at home becuase they worked from home now saw a chance to make money. And travelers saw a way to actually get a car.
Turo’s sales went up by hundreds of percent. At the same time, the number of people renting from the big companies was down from before the pandemic. Turo was stealing their customers. They were taking market share, which is the peice of the pie. Turo’s peice got bigger, and that meant Enterprise’s and Hertz’s peices got smaller.
Even now that things are more normal, Turo is still growing. They’re proving that the idea works and that people like it. They’re forcing the big companies to change. The big rental companies cant just ignore them. They cant just keep offering bad service and “or similar” cars and hope people keep coming back becuase they have no other choice. Now people do have another choice.
How the Rental Companies are Trying to Fight Back
The old rental companies arnt stupid. They see whats happening. They might be slow, but they’re not just gonna roll over and die.
The most obvious thing they’re doing is competing on price. You can find some pretty good deals on traditional rentals now becuase they know they have to. They are trying to make their prices more competitive with what you might find on Turo, especially when you add in all of Turo’s fees.
They’re also trying to make their own apps and technology better. They want their apps to be as easy to use as Turo’s. They’re trying to do more “contactless” rentals where you can just go pick your car from a spot and unlock it with your phone, skipping the counter. They know people hate the counter.
And their biggest selling point, which they are pushing hard, is reliability and peace of mind. When you rent from Avis, you know you are getting a professionally maintained car. You know they have 24/7 roadside assistance. You know if the car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, they will send a tow truck and get you another car. If your Turo car breaks down, you’re calling the owner, “Steve,” who might be in a meeting or on a plane. Its just not the same level of support. For a business traveler or a family with kids, that reliability is worth more than saving a few bucks or getting a cooler car.
The Big Battleground is the Airport
This is where it gets really nasty. The airports. This is where most rental car companies make almost all their money. And they pay a ton of money to the airports to be there. They pay for their counters, their parking lots, their shuttle buses. And they charge every customer an “airport fee” that goes right back to the airport.
Turo just waltzed in and skipped all of that. Their hosts were just dropping off cars at the curbside or meeting people in the cell phone lot. They wernt paying any of those fees. The rental car companies were furious. They said this was totally unfair. They are paying millions to be at the airport and Turo is just using it for free.
So airports all over the country started fighting Turo. LAX, San Francisco, Boston, you name it. They started trying to ban Turo cars from the curb. They sent them nasty letters and tried to force them to pay the same fees as rental car companies. Turo sued them back, saying “we arnt a rental car company, we’re a tech platform.” They say its just like a friend dropping off a car for you.
This legal battle is still going on in alot of places. And its a huge deal. If Turo is forced to pay the same giant fees as Hertz, their prices will have to go way up. And that might erase their biggest advantage. It makes picking up and dropping off at an airport a huge pain, which is when most people need a rental car. This is probably the inbiggest threat to Turo’s whole business.
So… Can They All Just Get Along?
In the end, I dont think Turo is going to kill Enterprise. And Enterprise isnt going to crush Turo. It seems like they are going to end up serving different people, or the same people on different trips.
The market is big enough for both.
You’ll probably use a traditional rental when…
- You’re on a business trip and you just need a car that works, no suprises.
- You’re traveling with your family and reliability is the most important thing.
- You need to do a one-way rental (like drive from one city and drop it in another).
- You find a really good deal and the all-in price is cheaper than Turo.
- You’re flying into a super busy airport and you dont want to deal with the hassle of finding a Turo car in some random parking garage.
You’ll probably use Turo when…
- You want a specific, fun, or luxury car for a special occasion.
- You want to try a specific car model before you buy it.
- You’re under 25 and trying to avoid the huge young driver fees.
- You are renting in your own city and dont need an airport pickup.
- You’re more adventurous and willing to risk a few small problems for a better price or a cooler experience.
So yeah, Turo has defnitely had a big impact. Its shaken things up. Its forced the big, lazy rental car companies to get better, to lower their prices, and to actually think about technology. And that is a good thing for all of us, no matter who you end up renting from. It gave us another choice, and having choices is always better.