The rental and leasing scene in the region has become a very crowded party over the last decade. Traditionally hosted by the big name rental firms and leasing distributor houses, gatecrashers have stormed though the doors offering an entirely new way for consumers to get the cars they want and for the length of time they want.Â
Leading this charge is SelfDrive. The brainchild of the amiable Soham Shah, the company is a rare of example of where everyone seems to benefit. Partnering with car makers, dealers and lessors, ranks of cars can be shifted via its fleet platform ensuring vehicles get on the roads. Consumers, meanwhile, get access to new to as-good-as new vehicles from over 25 brands – the list keeps growing – with cars offered from 24 hours to 36 months. It’s a what you want, when you want it approach, that has made SelfDrive the leading car rental tech firm in the region.
Shah recalls when the company decided to move away from a straight chauffer service and leasing firm working in five Indian states to a fully-fledged Mobility-as-a-Service player in the Middle East.
Going back as far as 2007, Shah said he and his team had noted a lack of control when it came to buying cars for leasing services in India. The buy-to-lease model often meant that vehicles had to be sold if they weren’t being used.
“We were doing all the big names in India and realised that the only option after a vehicle had been leased was to auction it out,” he says.
What the car industry and their fleet customers needed was flexibility and the ability to maximise their investment into individual vehicles. And that meant better utilisation.
“The SelfDrive concept came to us in 2011 with a blue print of a concept called
“microlease” in 2012. It was just a very vague one line draft, later on it started being called as car subscription,” he explains. “We called it “microlease” because as a product it sat right below the leasing model. We identified a gap in the market. One could only find daily / weekly rental or go to a big leasing company, but could’nt find a solution if you could use the vehicle as on-demand?”
With the SelfDrive model taking shape as a company that could offer all-in-one service Daliy/Weekly rentals, microlease (car subscription) – 1month to 12 months and customized leasing solution & lease own (now known as its LeasePro programme), the company then needed two things: a digital platform to host the services (“We had the fleet, we had appetite. What was missing, was the technology to power and manage it all) and a market where it would be welcomed. This led to its launch in the UAE in 2017.
“What actually happened was one of the heads of a major automotive OEM was using our services at Mumbai International Airport at the time and asked us how serious we were to grow out of India,” he recalls. The problem being presented to the firm was how OEM and distributors had unsold inventory that was losing value in the Middle East.
“I remember going to a yard in 2016 and seeing piles/lines of unsold cars. These were brand new cars sitting in the desert by the way,” he explains. “We were operating SelfDrive in India, but it was difficult to gain momentum because of travel limitations on working between states. So, we said, let’s test the market out.”
Shah proudly tells T&FME that the company is now the largest vehicle subscription service in the region. Oman has followed its UAE launch and last year it entered Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and finally Kuwait. It is poised to join fellow micro-leasers iDrive and ekar in Saudi Arabia with the service likely to gain even more popularity with OEM and distributors as it expands.
“We can monetise the same vehicle whether that is through a microlease or a lease-to-own arrangement. The same model can have a different monetisation ratio depending on how our tech implemented,” he remarks.
One of its main reasons for success has also been the choice for consumers. The platform is open to any OEM or distributor that wants to partner with SelfDrive, ensuring that it offers a huge range of vehicles. Need a sports car for the weekend. No problem. Need to switch to a family car when your relatives stay with you? That can be accommodated too.
“We wanted a platform that was entirely agnostic,” says Shah. “It is a brand agnostic platform for dealers’ unsold inventory and the flexibility it offers to the users becomes immense.
“We all know Volvo is doing something in subscription, Hyundai is doing something in subscription but if you want a change your car you’re options are limited to that brand.”
He adds that the service is particularly popular with the expatriate community. “Our initial analysis showed that it was taking 18-24 months for someone to make their first purchasing decision,” he reveals.
“This is because when you arrive, banks will leave you alone as your credit rating is not set, and you may not be able to have the down payment you need to get the car that you want.” Services like SelfDrive now offers a way faster and flexiable access to mobility on-demad than in it was in the past.
The turnaround is rapid, the platform has the capacity to offer car subscription reservation to be servered on the same day and within 3 hrs delivered to you especially comparing with the given time taken in the past of 24 to 48hrs & the game changer is “LeasePro” service that offers only Brand New Cars direct from the dealership as compared to the traditional leasing methods.
“The average waiting time for a leased car delivery can take up to 30-40 days or more to get your desired car. We reduced it 7 days. If you want to lease a car now, click onto LeasePro in the app – you can view our listed brand new cars with zero kilometres and you can have it in the colour and trim you want. Also the 7 days is just so we can get it valeted, Insured and registered. We can potentially even do it in 3- 4 days….”
A younger demographic that does not have the financial clout to make a big vehicle purchase has also embraced the service as its totally flexable & ondemand.
“The car has always been an aspirational product but I’m not going to talk about the people on Instagram, but the real people that need a car. They need to commute to their job and we can make their lives easier.
While those consumers could choose to lease or rent, he adds that we found another gap in the market and identified a fundamental problem with the traditional rental houses early on.
“All the big rental companies will only buy the vehicles that make financial and profitable sense to them. So, every car rental company offers the same cars and models. What’s unique about that? Nothing. No car rental or leasing company is going to buy a i.e BMW X5 MSport!” He says, adding to a exasperated unsold inventory problem. We were watching as the vehicles would not fit the rental firm’s narrow specifications of their own fleet. Shah adds: “The problem is that the dealers and the manufacturers have practically no say or control over the rental fleet ecosystem that is puerly governed by rental companies.”
Unsurprisingly, the noises from manufacturers were largely positive when SelfDrive made its initial pitches to them.
“Manufacturers said: We are prepare to support you, if you build up the platform. So in 2016 and 2017 the team – the founders, the tech guys – got together and practically rebuilt the existing platform from the ground up and made it more suitable for the automotive eco-system in the Middle East.”
Today, SelfDrive’s proprietary suite of fleet management technology offers a way to increase market share without any capital investment from OEMS. SelfDrive has consequently attracted companies from across the automotive industry onto its platform, including companies that you traditionally see themselves as rivals in the market like BMW and Audi – other brands include VW, Nissan, Infiniti, Renault, Chevrolet, Hyundai, Geely, Toyota, Mitsubishi and Kia. “We practically have everyone from the Japanese to the Koreans to the Germans and the Americans all on one platform.”
A traditionally conservative dealer channel has also been tempted onto the platform despite their own leasing operations.
“The dealer network has got on-board – the more that we talked to the dealers we realised that they wanted it to fit with their existing leasing operation,” he says. But wouldn’t that make them more resistant to effectively joining a rival service? T&FME asks.
“They had no other vertical (within their businesses) in case there was an early return to a leased car,” he explains, adding that could mean the loss of thousands of dollars if a dealer had to take back the vehicle.
“They had a massive headache from a capex point of view. If a company leased 100 units and then pulled out of 75 units after 18 months breaking the lease contract, then the only options was to sale the cars in the used car market as it might not necessary fetch the actual cost canculated via the 36 months leased deal and may create heavy revenue losses but with SelfDrive dynamic platform the early returned cars can quickly be turned around within couple of days under Micro Lease subscription and achive its lost revenue.”
In an age of great disruption, SelfDrive is seemingly doing its best to disrupt the Middle East market but also building a new age car sector at the same time. Adapting to the every changing the automotive industry and providing meaningful solutions to match end-to-end (manufacturers to dealers to consumers)with an one fully integreated tech solution.
SelfDrive is just not a APP it has built a new age Eco System where for the first time market access to mobilty is complimented direct from the car manufacturer.
SelfDrive now intends to expands its services to UK & Europian Markets by Q2 of 2023 & in USA by Q4 of 2023. Making it one of the fatest growing tech mobility company.
