Zoomcar keyless-staffless rental experience!

Ever thought of a fully automated car rental- pickup a car and drop it off all by yourself without having to rely on any staff/assistant? You thought that can’t work in India? Well Zoomcar has such a facility operational in India. Once you book a car, you can walkin, unlock and zoom-out in a car without any help from a staff. This facility was on the cards since long time, but all of my previous self-drive car rental bookings were delivered by zoom car attendants, until my recent booking of Honda Amaze on Jan 20th.

This was the first time I tried Zoom’s human-less pickup and drop of self drive rental car. I reached the pickup point little earlier than planned, so had to wait for sometime before I could unlock. I wanted to pre-pone the booking start time, but I couldn't do that via App, couldn't create a new booking and couldn't reach call centre as well (I was told there was some outage that time) With no human staff around, though I could see an XUV500, a Scorpio, an Amaze, an Ecosport and a Figo around I was helpless. At about 5 AM a bunch of youngsters arrived, unlocked a Scorpio and drove away. I could unlock the car 20 min before the scheduled pickup time. I got email about the same. To unlock the car, I had to click on Unlock button in the App. The car unlocked promptly. I got in, key was not in the glove box where it was supposed to be, but I found it in the area below the central console (between gearbox and music system). I tried pickup checklist, but the Tablet was totally dry. I had to charge it for few minutes before I could turn it on. Instead of charging and leaving it ON, fleet guy should probably charge it and switch it off, to avoid battery draining. (Why can’t I do the check list on my own smartphone ZoomcarApp? Why should I use Tablet for that? I had to enter booking ID manually. Checklist was simple and fast. But I find following things missing:

·         No provision to enter Odometer reading

·         No provision to enter any specific scratch/damage found on the car. (There were images from all angles, but zoom on the image was not working, so one can’t pin point specific scratch/dent in those images)

·         Car was clean on the inside but very dusty on the outside- I guess this can’t be avoided unless you’ve a reserved parking area. Leaving the car by the roadside will ensure dust accumulation
·         One of the items- aux cable was missing. I had the option to proceed without it or wait for a zoomcar staff to arrive and help. I didn't need that thing, so I proceeded with my drive.

Rest of the day was fine, I could zoom around the city. But I was too tired to take any pictures of the car.

Then came the return part. I drove in to Zoomcar Jayanagar parking spot in front of Mainland China. Here I had to fight with Hotel security to park the car. They objected me to park on the road and advised me to park on the other side of the road, which clearly had 'No parking' sign and no extra space/lane to park. The basement of the building had Zoomcar parking sticker on it, but I wasn’t allowed to drive in either. After convincing them I parked on the roadside, same place from where I had driven off in the morning.

I completed the return checklist- It didn’t ask for Odometer reading, didn’t ask if there’re any new damages etc. App said door will lock automatically after 5 minutes. I wanted to be sure, so I waited outside the car to ensure that it gets locked. But even after 10 minutes, car didn’t get lock itself. So I called the fleet executive and told him the same. He managed to lock the car remotely. I see this as big risk- what if I (or other customers) had walked away without ensuring that car is physically locked? What if someone else does damage to the car while it was parked? (Roadside parking is prone to multiple incidents) If thieves get to know that key is in the glove box, it doesn’t take much effort for them to break the window and escape with the car. I feel it will be safer to have this option in a closed parking area, where at least one security guard is present if not fleet crew.

Representative image

Also a reminder asking customers to ensure that they’ve taken all their belongings from the car and probably an option to LOCK instantly and not after 5 mins will be nice.

Automation is good, but at times we simply prefer to talk to a human. That said, the whole concept as such is great. Good to see such innovations actually working in everyday life. Minor flaws can always be fixed.

Update: Keyless option is available only for cheaper cars, not for expensive ones like Merc & BMWs

Similar: Zoom vs Carzonrent *  Drive a Merc without robbing a bank *