
When Amazon car rental goes from an online platform to a retail store, what does that mean for consumers?
A week after Amazon announced it was launching a car rental service, it’s taking steps to bring that service to more Americans, but there’s still a long way to go before it’s available.
On Monday, Amazon said that it would open a third-party rental service called Amazon CarRental in the US, but that it was still in the process of developing a national mobile app and would launch that service by the end of the year.
Amazon’s announcement came just one day after a number of major car rental companies announced they would all be expanding their mobile apps to the US.
“As we continue to accelerate our growth and invest more in mobile, our mobile apps will be available to all customers, across all regions and geographies,” an Amazon spokesperson said.
Amazon has a long history of offering its cars and carshares as a way to provide consumers with access to their own vehicles.
That strategy has been especially popular in cities where there’s a significant number of people commuting, as it’s easier to get access to cars and pay for them than renting a car.
In the past, Amazon has offered car rental services through its own car rental website.
The service itself has been fairly popular in many parts of the US — with the largest number of new car rental listings on Amazon’s app going up around the year end.
But Amazon has also found success with its car-rental partners.
For example, in April 2018, Uber partnered with Ford Motor Co. to offer car rental in the Dallas area.
The company’s app currently allows users to rent a car for around $30 per hour, with a $50 deposit.
A car rental company called Rent A Car has also started to offer the service.
A spokesperson for the company told Recode that its car rental plans were not yet finalized.
“We have not finalized our car rental model and are not ready to disclose pricing details,” the spokesperson said, declining to provide details about the new service.