Uber launches ‘Hourly Rental’ cars in the UK for maximizing social distancing

Australia and France will have trials soon

R Praveen Kumar
2 min readSep 14, 2020

For the First time, Uber has announced that it will soon enable users in the UK to book rental cars via Uber’s app. Uber has a partnership with the car rental company CarTrawler. Users will be able to select the new option “Uber Rent” within their app. Uber said users will be able to book vehicles right up to the time of pick-up before picking it up from a CarTrawler location. Rental cars can then be picked up from the “hundreds” of car hire company pickup locations. Australia and France will follow the trails.

Jamie Heywood, Uber regional general manager for northern-eastern Europe, said: “Now that travel restrictions are easing and people are venturing out more, we want to help get the country moving safely again.

Uber encourages you to make car reservations for at least 24 hours in advance. Rentals can be canceled up to 48 hours ahead of collection and Uber is promising discounts on rentals of up to 25 percent.

Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash

In this sensitive time, when the COVID-19 pandemic is outgrowing, Uber is creating a chance of minimizing social contact by launching a new scheme that allows users to book rental cars. Last month the company reported that it had lost $1.8 billion in the quarter, and its ride-hailing business was down 80 percent compared to the previous year. It has forced the company to lay-off hundreds of employees.

In a positive response, Uber is exploring more areas for growth. It has launched on-demand grocery delivery services in America and Canada. It even partnered with the commuter riverboat service for “Uber Boat”.

Uber has further added that the service is launching today, but the “Uber Rent” feature will take time to go live on Apple ios and Android phones.

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