RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Zazcar, one of the largest car-sharing services in Brazil, announced on Thursday, November 28th, that it has closed its operations for consumers in São Paulo: renting vehicles through the iPhone and Android app will no longer be possible.
It will continue to exist, but with a focus on selling its car-sharing technology. Several other companies in the sector have closed their operations in the country or started to operate only through B2B (business to business).
“After 10 years of operation, we made the difficult decision to end, for now, our car-sharing operation to the public in the city of São Paulo,” says Zazcar in a statement. “We will continue to operate in the B2B market, as providers of carsharing technology”.
Zazcar had a fleet of 130 cars in the city of São Paulo alone, where it competed with Turbi. Beepbeep, which started this year with ten electric vehicles, is also located in the city of São Paulo. There is also Moobie, which does not have its own fleet and rents vehicles from participating users; and Vamo, for electric cars, in Fortaleza.
The shared car rental program did not take off in Brazil. Pegcar, which offered vehicles in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Paraná, closed its operations last year; while Fleety closed down in 2017. Parpe, which operated in several Brazilian states, now only has operations in Portugal.
Olacarro had its own fleet, but is now focused on selling ads within Uber and 99 vehicles. And Urbano, which operated electric car-sharing in São Paulo, now offers only corporate fleets.
Zazcar featured car rentals per hour and kilometer
Zazcar’s service precedes even Uber: it was launched in São Paulo in 2010, providing car rental via the internet. There were models such as Fiat Uno, Gol, Fox, Chevrolet Zafira and even the Smart by Mercedes-Benz.
Users would register a profile on the website and purchase the daily rate, as well as in a traditional rental company; a specific card had to be used to unlock the vehicle.
In 2015, the company decided to change its business model: it started charging per hour and per kilometer, instead of per day; and simplified its own fleet of cars, offering only the Ford Ka.
Zazcar launched an App for Android and iPhone in 2016, enabling cars to be rented through it. Then, the whole process started to be conducted by mobile phone, from registration to unlocking the car.
The vehicles were scattered throughout São Paulo, mainly in the south, west and central zones, in parking lots under contract and open 24 hours a day. Prices started at R$8 per hour plus a fee per kilometer driven (R$0.45 to R$0.90). There were also packages of 12, 24 and 48 hours, with a charge for overtime.
The service already included insurance and fuel consumption; none of this was charged separately. If the tank remained low, users could refuel and pay with a Zazcar card found inside the car.
More people started using Zazcar after Uber arrived in Brazil. However, it still had some important limitations: users had to return the vehicle to the same place where it was picked up, and they had to bear maintenance costs if they damaged the car in any way (like scratches or bumps).
There are several car rental services per hour in the US and Europe; in general, picking up the vehicle at one location and leaving it at the destination, as well as a scooter or a dockless bike, is possible.
From now on, Zazcar will act as a supplier of carsharing technology to other companies. Last year, it received an investment of R$7.5 million from the FIP INSEED FIMA investment fund.
It was even mentioned by Amazon as a success story for AWS (Web Services): Zazcar started using cloud services to develop its own system and thus no longer rely on a Canadian vendor.