Turo sees 'tremendous growth' in the EV space as gas prices rise: CEO

Andre Haddad, Turo CEO, discusses the surge in peer-to-peer car sharing amid the ongoing car rental shortage and ahead of the holiday travel season.

Video Transcript

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- And welcome back to this Yahoo Finance live special, the holiday takeoff. So we've covered the airline industry. But a lot of people are going to hit the road simply by driving as they've done in years past. But there's a bit of sticker shock if you're going to rent a car. We've heard the horror stories, people going, say, to Portland, Maine from New York, spending $400 to rent a car just for three days. You don't have to go that route, especially if you try renting a car through Turo.

The CEO of Turo Andre Haddad joins us now to explain how the peer to peer car rental platform is helping lower the costs and get more people behind the wheel. Thank you for joining us, Andre Haddad it's good to have you here.

ANDRE HADDAD: Thank you, Adam, delighted to be here.

- So very simply put, explain to us, with the platform, how does it work? If I have a car, I put the car up for rent, and then you connect me with potential renters?

ANDRE HADDAD: Absolutely, it works like any other platform works in other spaces. You know, if you have a car that you're interested in sharing and earning some money with if you're not using it all the time, which is the case for the vast majority of cars, you can download the app on your phone. We've got an iOS app, we've got an Android app, you can also use this on the web. And you can become a host and start your small car sharing business on the platform by listing your car or multiple cars if you've got multiple cars. And we'll immediately start bringing business your way.

And we've seen hundreds of thousands of people become hosts over the last many years as the business has grown tremendously, and in particular, during these times, where, you know, there's been a car rental crunch, there's been horror stories around the cars that are unavailable in many destinations or the prices are being too high. We've seen many new hosts jump on the platform and list their cars. And they've been having a banner year thanks to the earnings that they're generating with their cars.

- You know, when we talk about the cost of a rental car, that story I told introducing you is a true story. It's a friend of mine who got hit with that $400 bill for just three days in Portland, Maine. If you go through Turo, you can actually rent to, say, for a month, and the average daily cost is much cheaper than, say, going through the traditional route. What brings the price down? Does the host of the car set the price? How does that work?

ANDRE HADDAD: Well, one of the things that are really unique about Turo is the extraordinary selection of vehicles that we've got. So, you know, unlike a traditional legacy rental car operator that has only a few types of vehicles available at any one time, we've got more than 1,300 makes and models that are available on the platform. So we've got, you know, everything, and you can imagine, on the planet in terms of makes, and models, and years of makes.

So as a result of this extraordinary selection, you know, there is literally, you know, choices and options at any price point. Everything starting at $10 a day to multiple hundreds of dollars a day if you're looking for a super fancy sports car. So as a result, we found that many of our guests are finding that they can find great value on the platform. And we're delighted to connect these guests to our hosts.

Hosts ultimately make the decision on what price they want to share their car at. So we give them some guidance about the price. There are different types of prices, daily prices, weekly prices, and monthly prices as you highlighted. And we give them guidance on the discounts that they can offer. We show them competitive pricing. So our hosts ultimately, though, they are empowered to, you know, make the final call on what price they want to charge for their vehicle.

- Is that something they can do through the app?

ANDRE HADDAD: Absolutely. Yes, they can see all the pricing recommendations through the app. And then they can just decide whether they're going to follow these recommendations or if they want to price the car the way they want to. They can price per day. They can decide the discount that they want to offer for weekly rentals or for monthly rentals. They can offer early booking discounts for those who book early, which is great for people booking for Thanksgiving, waiting for Christmas or New Year's. You know, these are the times where you can find the best prices when you're booking a bit early.

- So two part last question for you. First, what are you seeing as far as the EV trend? Because I know Tesla-- the desire to rent a Tesla is skyrocketing. And when will people in New York be able to do this because right now we can't use Turo in New York State?

ANDRE HADDAD: We've seen tremendous growth in the EV and alternative fuel space. In fact, we have the largest selection of EV and alternative fuel vehicles in the country. And Tesla is obviously one of the more popular EV brands. But we've also got, you know, a lot of other EVs. And as you know, many manufacturers are coming with a lot of different EV models over the last couple of years. So we're super delighted with the growth of EVs and alternative fuels on the platform.

Just to give you a sense of the numbers. You know, back in 2012 when we started the business, we started with very few EV listings. You can see it on your screen, less than a 100 listings were available that were EVs back then. And we are currently right over 21,000 listings. So there's been just an explosion in growth in EVs. And we're finding that Turo has become a great place for people to do an extended test drive of an EV.

As they're thinking of shopping for an EV, they want to try it for a day, for a weekend, for even a week to see if it works well with their commute, and to understand how charging works, how the new technology works, and if it's got an impact on their lives. And we see that growth continuing to escalate over the, you know, next many months. In particular, this travel season we're seeing-- yes.

- In 10 seconds, when in New York? Are we going to get the ability to do this in New York?

ANDRE HADDAD: Very soon, very, very soon. So you know, the peer to peer car sharing law has been voted favorably for by the assembly and the Senate this year. We're waiting for the government to sign and, then we'll be up and running in New York.

- And we wish you all the best because there are a lot of people here in New York who want to get behind the wheel. The CEO of Turo, Andre Haddad, thank you so much for joining us.