I am a member of San Francisco City Carshare, and I love it. They operate a beautiful fleet of cars that are easy to get to and easy to access with an electronic key on my key chain.  Adding to my motorcycle, the trucks and vans and minis that are available for me through carshare have kept me from owning a car for three years now.

But yesterday I met some folks who have come up with a whole new idea in car sharing, and it turns out they are going to launch it here in San Francisco.

It is called RelayRides and the idea is clever. Instead of owning a fleet, they are setting up the infrastructure to make use of all our existing cars as they sit around. Here’s how: owners of cars can rent their car out by specifying times they aren’t using it and locations it will be (home or work). RelayRides screens drivers, provides full insurance, outfits each car with a GPS/Electronic Entry Device, and keeps tabs on all the cars through a website. They even keep a rating system of cars and drivers so that if a car is regularly dirty or inconvenient, or if a driver is regularly inconsiderate with cars, those things can been recorded and known.

So basically you log onto a website, find a car near you (GPS will tell you the exact location if you choose it), check it’s history if you are worried, and then take it where you need to go.

When you need to borrow a car, you can rent one from the neighbor.

When you want to make some money renting your car out, you rent it to a neighbor.

It’s a great idea that really makes sense. I wish them the best.