A press release was sent out by Evercar on the 7th of September announcing that it had an expansion to Oakland and San Francisco from Los Angeles and have the fund needed for it to acquire up to 3, 000 vehicles in 2017. Then out of the moon, the company which had rented hybrids and EVs for hail services to drivers abruptly shuts down one month later. The company had at the 2015 show in Los Angeles Auto debuted with big plans for 2016 and then shuts down without notice. This makes one wonder what could have happened.
The first word that is officially coming from the company was via Twitter and Facebook where it said on October 10 that it was suspending the share operations in the on-demand car in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Although there was not many outbursts from the social media with most reactions coming from drivers who in their comment said they would having access to Nissan Leafs. This company for what it’s worth has a rating of 5-star given to it by Glassdoor.com employees with funding issue being the only reason they said the company had issues with.
A report from SF Gate said that a spokesperson from Evercar said that the company was only taking a break so that is can pursue options that are strategic. Meanwhile, contained in an email that was sent out to customers that was also posted on the company’s website only said that “unforeseen circumstances” which has prevented them from making the service that is an hourly rental available in the shortest term.
Even the PR firm of Evercar could not say what went wrong and stated in an email that was sent to it that no information was available on Evercar at the moment.
The company had in the past made its cars on rent to drivers that operate on services of ride-hailing such as Uber and Lyft as well as other services that are on-demand like Postmates that goes for up to $5-$8 hourly and dependent on the service area and the car rented.
One problem that the company was known to have is that it was financing its cars via 3 rd party making it a lot more challenging to rival other services in the short-term rental that Lyft and Uber offer their drivers to. Uber had in place a leasing option for long-term while Lyft was in partnership with GM to give drivers vehicles that eligible at little or no extra cost that is dependent on how many rides that have been given.
