One problem is that there's a long tail of car use cases that are served terribly by things like car-sharing. For example if you rent a car for a few hours of driving, two weeks of parking at some trailhead or remote resort and then driving back it's inevitably priced for the wear and tear that would happen if you spent the entire two weeks doing nothing but sleeping and driving. Rentals that aren't dead-set on the pattern "a few days of driving between arrival and departure" exist, but they have terrible discoverability and that implies that prices fell arbitrary ("is this close to the price I would get in a market with full visibility or are they just taking advantage of nonstandard needs?")
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's still plenty of room for innovation in the non-owned car market.
I think people underestimate the price of owning a car vs. renting one. I can rent a VW Golf in Berlin for <350 EUR per week, 1000km included. The ADAC (car owners association) puts the monthly price tag for owning such a car at > 500 EUR per month. (assuming you buy it new, own it for 5 years and drive 15000km/year) https://www.adac.de/_mmm/pdf/autokostenuebersicht_47085.pdf
That means I can rent that car for ~5 month and still come out ahead.
I actually meant “rent the car for X month”, but I made some mistakes here. First, I took the exact numbers for the calculation, but rounded them generously in favor of owning the car in the post. Second I made some sort of mistake, doing the math, so I’m still slightly off. The correct math:
The smallest golf on the list is 579 EUR/Month, that’s 6.948 EUR per year. Renting a Golf at starcar costs 1436 EUR for the month of August. That’s 4.84, just shy of 5.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's still plenty of room for innovation in the non-owned car market.