NEW DELHI: India's largest car rental company, Carzonrent plans to venture into self driven cars on the lines of developed Europe and the US markets, with the launch its own services; Myles that would entail an estimated investment of Rs 400 crore and have a strong 5000 car fleet in next three years.

The first to hit the market for self driven cars, the company would start with an initial fleet of 100 cars with brands like Mahindra E2O, Maruti Swift, Volkswagen Polo, Toyota Etios, Nissan Sunny, Mahindra XUV500, Ford Endeavour and Toyota Fortuner. Any driver with a valid license and credit card can avail services from Rs 800 to Rs 4,999 for single day usage.

Besides tapping the fast growing tourism and leisure market, the self-driven cars would be available at the airport, railway station and other central outlets of Carzonrent to provide convenient and affordable mobility. "There is a tremendous opportunity of building the self driven segment from the dominant unorganised and unstructured taxi business in the Indian market. We aim to bring in the best global practices in the self-driven business under transparent costing and hassle free experience, ..

The $4 billion Indian commercial taxi market is now largely restricted to rental, radio cabs and corporate leasing. Self-driven concept is fairly new with some global players like Hertz and Sixt had initiated it few year back but now all these players have eventually opted out of the price sensitive Indian market.

Self-driven cars are globally one of the largest segment and without chauffer costs also the most affordable. "We have tried to keep our service charges much lower than the regular cabs as we too save on chauffer salary and perks that forms a large segment of our operating costs. Like in case the electric car, the Mahindra E2O can be self driven at the price of Rs 800 for the entire day, which is almost half the cost of any regular taxi across India for the same duration," Vij added.

Myles would provide overall driving experience as the cars are comprehensively insured and have a valid rent-a-cab license for self drive. The GPS devices in these cars will provide all the help during critical times in case of technical breakdown or mishaps.

The company would initially roll out the GPS enabled Myles in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore in the first phase shortly. Later it plans to extend this self-driven services to 35 cities like Hyderabad, Chennai, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Pune and Goa and also take its self-driving car fleet to 5,000 in the next three years.

Carzonrent has strength of 7,000 cars in its feet dedicated of cabs with brands like the basic Maruti to Mercedes in the top end.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com