Car owners will be able to rent out their vehicles when they are not using them under a new scheme to be launched in London in 2012 by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the easyJet founder, and Brent Hoberman, founder of Lastminute.com.
The Car Club, to be run as a subsidiary of Haji-Ioannou's online car rental firm easyCar, will offer the car-sharing service alongside its usual hire vehicles. Car owners who sign up for the scheme will be able to set the price themselves and decide when their vehicles are available to be hired.
Haji-Ioannou said that customers would be able to use a smartphone app to book slots in their neighbours' vehicles, giving drivers a cheaper alternative to standard car rental and car owners a new way of generating cash.
An automated car entry and tracking system means that owners will not have to be on the spot to rent their car.
Haji-Ioannou said: "Rather than having to buy the cars to be rented and pay the ownership costs, this business model relies on the fact that there are plenty of underused cars on the road already, and that is lazy capital that can be put to work again."
EasyCar also championed the green credentials of the new scheme, claiming that every car shared is estimated to get 10 cars off the road and reduce personal car emissions by more than 40%.
The company is not the first to launch such a service. WhipCar launched in April 2010 with a similar business model, allowing motorists to register their car to rent to people in their neighbourhood for anything from a few hours to weeks at a time.
EasyCar has not released further details of exactly how the scheme will work, but interested car owners and renters can pre-register on the firm's website.
At WhipCar, acceptable vehicles must be no more than eight years old, have a valid MOT, road tax and insurance, and be clean and in good condition. Rental charges are paid into the owner's bank account each month after WhipCar has deducted 15% commission.
Renters also have to register with the site, and WhipCar checks their age, licence details and whether they have any convictions. They pay the agreed hourly or daily cost, plus a charge for fully comprehensive insurance on the vehicle and a £2.50 charge that goes to WhipCar.
The easyCar Car Club is the latest in a mini-boom in community-based pooling and renting services. They include:
Rentmyitems If your lawnmower sits unused for 29 days in every 30, or you have a travel cot you hardly use, this site puts you in touch with someone who will pay to borrow it. Some users are listing cars alongside other smaller goods. There isn't much listed yet.
Campinmygarden A patch of grass can be turned into cash if you are happy to have campers in the back garden. Homeowners around the country are asking about £10 a person a night for spaces.
YourParkingSpace and ParkatmyHouse Your unused driveway or garage could be someone else's perfect parking space and these sites let you find them. Homeowners with spaces near London stations are offering spaces for upwards of £7.50 a day.
Storemates Make money out of your unused space by finding people who have stuff to store. This seems to have limited appeal to homeowners – on the postcodes we searched, the most we came up with were five results, but many postcodes returned nothing.
Research published by Santander Mortgages reveals that homeowners are generating an average of £182 a month from renting out their spare rooms, while website Easyroommate.co.uk said that the UK's flatsharing population reached 2,851,000 in 2011.
