This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Can renting your car on Touro actually make money? That's what we're gonna talk about. In the very early days of side hustle school, I had a story about a guy who rented his car out on Touro and then did so well with it that he actually leased or purchased, I forget what it was, he acquired somehow an entire fleet of rental cars. He paid less than $200 a month for these cars. I think he had nine of them.
He was renting them out all across the city and making several thousand dollars a month profit on that deal. Now that was a very cool story, but also involved a lot of complexity in terms of acquiring all those vehicles, keeping up with the logistics and so on. So if you don't happen to have an entire fleet of rental cars in your garage, if you don't own a nine car garage, let's say, can you still make money in the car sharing space? Is it worth it? Platforms like Touro, there may be some others as well, they allow regular people to rent out their personal cars or other vehicles, turning an everyday expense into a potential income stream.
But how easy is it? Can you really make a decent profit or do the costs such as wear and tear, insurance, unexpected repairs outweigh the earnings? That's what our caller today wants to know. He's in Atlanta. We're gonna look at the numbers, the risks, the best strategies to make car sharing work as a profitable side hustle.
I hope it's helpful to some of our listeners out there. Thanks for being out there, by the way. Detailed question and my answer coming right up. [Music]
Hi, side hustle team, this is Margo from Atlanta. I've been looking into the idea of renting out my car as a side hustle using platforms like Touro.
It seems like a great way to make passive income, but I have some concerns. Like how profitable is it really with just one vehicle? What kind of risks should I be aware of? How do I make sure I'm actually making money instead of just covering wear and tear and stuff? I'd love to hear your take on whether this is a smart side hustle or if I should look for something else.
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So basic Touro renting or I suppose renting a car or another vehicle on some other platform falls into what I call a starter hustle. It's reliant on the gig economy. It might be a little bit better than driving for a DoorDash or something like that, but you're probably not going to make a ton of money doing it, right? The platforms are gonna make the majority of the money because they are doing this at scale. It's also a challenge when that is your only vehicle.
Part of the reason why the other story was so compelling with this guy who got nine cars, I think it was nine, it was a large number, whatever it was, is that it's turning into a real business that way. He's not just using his primary vehicle to do it. That said, if you are new to the world of side hustling or you don't drive a lot, you have access to another form of transportation and you'd be willing to give up your vehicle in exchange for whatever amount of money is worth it to you per day or per week, then it can work and it can be a good experiment because it can often lead to something else or get you thinking about other opportunities. Let's look at some specific numbers. Income potential varies based on location, vehicle type and demand.
A standard sedan in a mid-sized city might bring in 500 to $800 per month. That's assuming it's gonna be rented about a third to half the time while a luxury SUV or sports car could make $1,500 or more per month. But of course, those numbers don't factor in cleaning, depreciation, something that might go wrong, an occasional bad renter. Obviously there's insurance for some of those issues, but they can still be a hassle, which brings us to risks. So the biggest concerns are liability and downtime.
And if you have a primary vehicle, then you're not so dependent on the Turo platform or another platform to have it rented a certain number of days a month. But if you do acquire another vehicle, specifically for the purpose of having it rented out, then you start worrying about downtime, about how many days or weeks is it going to be rented out? What if it's just sitting there all the time? If it is your only car, then that's less of a problem, but then you have the problem of it being your only car. So basically like if you're open to scaling, if it does seem to work for you, adding a second vehicle can make this a much more serious income stream.
I think in the long-term, if you want to spend your time pursuing platforms like Turo, having more than one vehicle is probably the best bet. But of course, always good to experiment. If you're looking for some simple passive income, this might not be the best fit, but nothing wrong with experimenting. Let me know how it goes. Listeners, let me know how it goes for you.
If you have a question or a comment or an experience, sidehustleschool.com will continue to feature listener stories throughout the year, along with updates from other listeners as they launch and grow their projects. Hope you'll join in again tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
