Business case study - EV rentals and Experience Center

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PV1

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Spawned by a bunch of thoughts, reflections, and a few articles on Hydrogen cars, I was pondering if a case could be made for an EV rental business with an experience center.

There are a few properties I'm looking at. One in particular is in "prime area" not too far off the highway, and close to a Casino, Racetrack, and plenty of shopping. I was thinking of setting up an experience center inside with charging stations, demonstrations of how an EV works, plugging in an EV, the differences among different fuel sources, and statistics on production EVs, including history. Outside, I would have level 2 stations serving every parking spot (not a very big parking lot :lol: ), with a CHAdeMO quick charger or two and maybe an SAE Combo (to serve the BMW i3's of the area), all for public access.

As for the rental side, have a few i-MiEVs, a few LEAFs, and a Volt or two to start out, renting cars out for a few days up to a week each.

For the Tesla folks coming in from out of town, leave your car on charge and borrow one of the i-MiEVs to go shopping or to the casino while your car charges. Though with Superchargers 30 miles west, 60 miles east and 40 miles north, I doubt this would happen much. Still, the option would be there.

If things go well, start selling EVs.


I would appreciate your thoughts on this. With some backing of local EV advocates and owners, this could be a possibility. But for now, it's just another one of my wild ideas :ugeek: .
 
While your intentions are noble, based on what you describe I see one basic flaw. Buying the various chargers, rent, vehicles, utilities, etc, would be offset by rental fees that could not possibly cover your overhead. Looking at just the rent side of the equation, if your rent was $2,000 a month you would need EV rental income greater than that amount. Add in the cost of the rental EVs (in excess of $100,000), chargers ($??), etc and your monthly overhead would be significant.

I speak from personal experience. Back in 2007 I opened a dedicated EV dealership in Wisconsin (one of three in the state) and went about promoting EVs at county fairs, cities, civic groups, etc. This is back before the major manufacturers had EVs on the market and the public knew next to nothing about EVs. My overhead was very low but it still required me to sell a few EVs a month to stay solvent. It didn't happen and by 2010 I closed the dealership (all three of the dedicated EV dealerships in Wisconsin were closed by 2012). I regret nothing about this experience and still think about it in positive terms. The negative side is it cost me a great deal of money.

Think carefully about what you are planning. Being a passionate EV advocate does not necessarily equate into a successful EV business. Best of luck in your endeavor.

Archie
 
The property can be bought outright, though I'd still have loan payments of who knows what. The property is $500,000 with an existing building that used to be a used car dealer two years ago.

I understand this would require substantial capital to get going. I'm wondering if starting with a quick charger and some solar on the roof would generate enough money to offset some of the overhead. The quick charger would have paid access, but nothing too expensive, and the solar would generate enough to power the charger and a mostly empty building. Of course, there's a lot of cost associated with that, too.

I didn't know you had an EV dealership. Sad to hear it didn't work out. Any thoughts of doing it again now that EVs are gaining a foothold?

I'll be consulting with some locals and do a lot of homework before doing anything (as I usually do). Except for BMW, there's no easy way to try an EV for a few days unless you know someone willing to lend theirs to you, or buy one. Judged by the reception of the i-MiEV at events, I'm sure I can wrangle in at least rentals. My friend has a solar business and gauged interest in EV rentals, and had more interest than expected, though I'll have to check with him and see what the numbers were.
 
You might want to keep tabs on the EV Charging Business Model Study currently underway in WA state. I considered it unnecessary, but the state has to spend half a mill on consultants before it can do anything these days. So far, they're coming up empty- there is no real business model for public access EVSE.

http://www.leg.wa.gov/JTC/Pages/ElectricVehicleChargingStationNetworksStudy.aspx
 
Thanks for the info.

I tend to operate on the philosophy of 'build it, and they will come.' Having a quick charger south of Pittsburgh might bring a decent portion of EVs south more often, since the only place in town to charge is the Nissan dealer, and they only have one level 2 unit.
 
http://www.smove.sg/

a car and bike rental firm in Singapore. I have written to them and they were really helpful.

Was thinking of doing the same thing here in NZ.
 
Does anybody have any experience with car sharing programs, such as ZipCar or RelayRides? I was giving thought to using RelayRides to rent the cars out, since they take care of insurance and most of the paperwork.
 
So, just an update on what's been going on.

I found an i-MiEV, Volt, and a LEAF, all in good to excellent condition, and all $20,000 or less. I have someone who will rent the i-MiEV semi-regularly.

I've decided on four, 8 foot dual ChargePoint bollard charging stations. The building only has single-phase, which could be upgraded, but for now no QC. I'm still working out the business side of things and navigating through the legal stuff to see what that all involves.

Once I'm sure on everything, I may launch crowdfunding, since donations will offset the loan, and make the business that much easier to operate (less monthly income required to break even).

My friend in the solar business is working on sending out his first newsletter to a large group of people interested in solar, eBikes, and EVs. Putting a small article in that newsletter will put me on a decent number of people's radars. At the events I've taken the i-MiEV, I've had a few offers from people wanting to buy my car on the spot, so there is interest.

How does "Electric Ave. Rentals and Lounge" sound?
 
PV1 said:
Once I'm sure on everything...
There is no certainty, but that hasn't stopped entrepreneurs. PV1, as with most non-high-tech ventures, I presume you've gone through the process of putting together a detailed business plan before you've stuffed any money into this idea?

I wish you all the best, but suggest you do the math first with realistically-achievable assumptions, and don't forget to pay yourself a salary.
 
Thanks. Definitely working the math first. I haven't bought anything yet.

I have a spreadsheet, calculating different possible monthly expenses against varying degrees of income to determine how often each car has to be rented to break even. Right now with 2 cars, they both have to be out 20 days of the month to cover the cost of the loan to buy the building and cars. :? Without the building, a week.

The thing I'm worried about is we're heading into winter, and the building I'm looking at has no power, so there's a good possibility that water lines will break, making the building even more expensive to fix up (not bad, just have to install ceiling tiles and fix up the floor on the lower level), though it may have gone through last winter vacant.
 
PV1, perhaps make sure you've looked at the big picture.

A quick Google search for "Elements of a Business Plan" produced -

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/38308

https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/ec/ec-735.pdf

http://www.sba.gov/writing-business-plan

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maryellen-tribby/the-eight-key-elements-of_b_3623800.html

Principles are the same, no matter how small you think your business is. Putting a business plan together makes you think about areas you might not have considered.

You mentioned a building needing refurbishment. For example, regulatory constraints alone may result in unacceptable time and cost delays, not to mention code compliance issues.

All I'm suggesting is that you do your homework so you don't get blindsided.

Wishing you all the best!
 
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