I ran a very affordable car share platform for years. One gentleman used it at night to study in.
We suspected his claims of it being a comfortable place to get work done didn't fit with renting it from say midnight to 5 but upon an "investigation" we saw books and papers on the dash, the dome lights on, you know, deep study.
Still think it's kinda strange... He was middle aged and married. My theory was he had a snoring wife at home and was taking night school or something.
There was another gentleman who would book the cars at night and also go nowhere for hours. Upon investigating him he was listening to fiction books on tape... Relaxing with the seat back and enjoying the novel. Rented around the same time almost every evening.
I don't think it's strange. I often prefer to work or study in the car compared to using busy (library) or expensive (cafe/coworking space) alternatives. Home is reserved for relaxation and family, and I learned when I used to commute a long way by car that it serves as a mobile private and separate space that's perfect for self improvement and learning.
I am affected strongly by association. I concentrate fine at work, but in my bedroom, my brain can't get out of relaxation mode. It's constantly going "this is the room we sleep in, it must be time for sleep"
And I have gone to my car to study before. It works! Not everyone can have a home office.
I was lucky to have the opportunity to move into a 4Mx5M bedroom with room for a large desk, office chair, and couch, and it helps immensely.
No, I use software, digital reading and audio to study. I don't need a surface or to handwrite. Served me well through undergrad, PhD and 7+ languages :).
When cleaning cars we found among other things: lots of drugs (heroine, meth, crack and supplies), stolen merchandise, weapons, a box of fake ids, etc. People would use stolen drivers licenses to sign up, stolen credit cards to pay, it happened frequently.
If someone constantly rented the car at night, didn't drive it, and was dodgy whenever they came to a lot, I guess you could say it's none of our business except that it's a $10,000 insurance liability along with a branding issue if someone is say doing hard drugs in our cars while people are walking by.
These quite rare investigations only happened after finding things. Sometimes cars would be out for 10+ rentals before arriving back for a cleaning. The frequent night renters would be on the previous renter lists multiple times after finding things so it was more to clear their name from suspicion than anything.
Honestly I don't really have a judgment on someone say, freebasing meth, that's their freedom. Just please not in our cars.
> Honestly I don't really have a judgment on someone say, freebasing meth, that's their freedom.
If that were all they were doing, and staying inside, that'd be one thing - but it generally ends up going far beyond this, at least here in the United States.
Such people through those actions, of using major hard drugs, are generally at a point where they don't care what happens to them, or their bodies. They then eventually go out in the public; when they aren't bothering anybody, their antics can be entertaining at best, and downright tragic at worst.
When they do go to bother somebody - and they will, and do - they generally won't leave you alone. In some situations, they can get extremely violent. Also, regardless of whether they are violent or not, depending on their level of usage and other factors, they may literally look - and sometimes are - "the walking dead". Coughing, spitting, seeping and oozing open sores - this and more can be found among these poor souls. One hopes they can find help, but more often than not they refuse it when offered (some will even claim to be healthy and sound, despite the reality).
Eventually some turn to random violence or other crime, quite often breaking and entering locked vehicles and homes, stealing whatever isn't nailed down (and quite often stuff that seemingly is - not even rooftop mounted air conditioning units are safe).
I'm normally all for "freedom of choice" - that one's body is sacrosanct and should be up to the owner what can and should be done with it. But some of these drugs have shown that, when abused, they can lead to worse outcomes for the public at large. Part of it does have to do with the illegality of the drug, and it's availability. Maybe if such drugs were legal and free, and shelters or other places available to use of the drugs (with appropriate medical or other staff to ensure abuse doesn't occur, or that people can get help or treatment as needed or desired) - such outcomes would be different or non-existent.
As it is here in the United States, though, at a certain point users of these drugs become a problem for society and its safety at large; they should have freedom - but not the kind of freedom that allows harm to others.
I think the person you’re responding to imagined you went searching for them, found them in the car and left them alone. Whereas you meant examining car after it was returned.
No. It was just loud and clearly it was people telling stories. Maybe it was a play or some kind of theater.
That time we were looking for what was eventually a big fluffy not house trained dog that led to chronic professional cleaning costs.
Having big fluffy dogs taking liberties on our upholstery was something we couldn't afford to constantly clean and we had a no (shedding) pets policy and it's certainly not fair to do some blanket ban on a bunch of users because we couldn't find the actual dog.
Do/should you have any expectation of privacy in a car? Surely it depends on your location? If you're on you're own private land then you should expect privacy, in the middle of a car park, not so much.
But the car rental company to use GPS tracking to come make sure you are using the car in a way that they approve of, while you are paying them? Very creepy.
It also doesn't sound like it would have mattered if these people WERE parked up on their own driveway..
It is the term used for illegal off the book cabs, and Gypsy is actually used by some Romany organisations.
Shortening the name to(I wont repeat it) is a slur and possibly a slur depandant on how its used similar to the shortening of Pakistani is a slur but the full name isn't.
I understand what you mean, but please see the link I posted in the comment you're replying to. Consensus on Wikipedia says otherwise. Also, personally I think using the name of an ethnic group to mean an illegal activity is not good.
It's not creepy at all to monitor the usage of their product. Even if they were on private property it's not an invasion of privacy to observe them from public property. What's creepy is people renting a vehicle for a usage other than getting from point A to B that also requires privacy.
If they were renting a car there is a very high chance that they didn’t have their own driveway anyways (detached house ownership is highly correlated with car ownership).
This is a problem with big cities. There are no public spaces. Even less private spaces for free.
Recently, I was in Barcelona and was surprised to see a bunch of teenagers cramped together sitting on the pavement in a shopping mall. At first, as an old person that I am, I thought that they were up to something. But, they were having fun, laughing and having a good time. The only park had no trees and few banks anyway. So, it was better to sit on the floor somewhere in the shadow that to sit on the floor under the sun.
Even more interesting was the fact that the place had a lot of empty chairs. But, those ones were for paying customers.
If it is so hard to find a place to sit with friends much more difficult is to find a place where to sit alone. Some libraries are ditching the focus on books to just offer a space to study together or alone.
If I have criticised USA cities for being designed for cars European (and Japanese also) cities are designed for businesses.
Stockholm is one of the few cities where I have seen a focus on parks and outdoor pastimes. Ironically, it is only available two or three months a year as usually is too cold to be confortably sitting outsite.
There’s a ton of public space in Tokyo. To me this reads as:
- people pay for car sharing (generally it requires a monthly fee plus a small usage fee per hour)
- occasionally people that already pay the monthly fee take advantage of a nearby available car to sit in or nap in.
This isn’t a widespread trend where public space is so limited one needs to rent a car to sit in.
The napping explanation is probably the most common. It’s normal to see people napping in vehicles at midday, especially delivery drivers and construction workers. I can see the appeal of hopping in a nearby car-share car to nap as it would be more comfortable than the seating one can normally find.
I do something like this with my own car (not a rental). I live in a very hot climate and don't have AC, so my home office is essentially useless in the summer. Recently I bought a Tesla Model 3, and I'll just take my laptop out to the car, sit in the passenger seat and select "Keep climate on" from my phone. I never felt comfortable doing this with an ICE car due to engine vibration, noise and stink.
Sometimes I break up my work day by going to Starbucks and working there, but if I can't find a seat, I can just bring my drink back to my car. It's not ideal--there's no table--but it's not bad.
There can be many reasons (house not being yours, etc.) but one of them could easily be cultural inertia.
During the first half of my life, very few people in my country (Italy) had AC in their homes. It wasn't until the recent high temperatures, which only became obvious 20 years ago or such, that everybody started installing them.
I can't find a historic chart specific to my country, but I suppose it wouldn't be too dissimilar from this:
Probably rental home. I have also been in this situation where my landlord wasn't in the moods of having to deal with AC installation, so he didn't approve it. I can imagine doing the same if I had a Tesla 3 back then.
If you're in the US, you don't need to worry about landlords to install AC; as long as the room has a window, you just buy a window AC unit and stick it in.
Why would they have such a restriction? It doesn't make any permanent changes to the house at all. Will the landlord even see it? You can put it in a window in the back, and take it out if the landlord ever comes by.
Not sure about the parent post, but my lease also has a similar restriction. In my case, it's just re-asserting a restriction passed through via an HOA covenant[1].
But I'd also restrict it as a landlord. An improperly installed window unit can easily lead to water damage through improper sealing or installation, can stress the window frame if it isn't braced appropriately, and be a major falling hazard if installed on upper floors.
Not that it takes advanced skills to avoid most of those potential problems. But there's a reason many apartment complexes nowadays deadbolt utility closets and require maintenance calls for something as mundane as periodically changing out air filters[2]. Making any presumption about the sensibility and competencies of your tenants is a recipe for costly disasters.
[2] For those less familiar with HVAC units, there are one or more air intakes somewhere in the house. Inside the air intake is a filter that traps dust and other particulates so they don't recirculate through the house. These filters get clogged up over time and need changed out every 1-3 months.
>Not sure about the parent post, but my lease also has a similar restriction. In my case, it's just re-asserting a restriction passed through via an HOA covenant.
I have a hard time believing there's any place in America where there's houses in HOAs which don't have air conditioning. Sure, there's houses without A/C in America, but they're always very old houses that predate the invention of the HOA, and usually also the invention of the subdivision. If your house already has HVAC, then this discussion is moot since you'd have little reason to install a window unit.
What about rooms with casement windows? In that case, it will often involve building an adapter to install a room AC. Additionally, landlords could easily be upset by that, since then the window will be extended all the time, allowing it to be caught by winds or for water to damage the frame. There are also people who live in high-rises with windows that do not open.
Or get a portable unit and vent the exhaust out a window or door (or if nfg, into the attic/plenum space). Portables tend to be more expensive, and you usually have a water tank to dump occasionally (condensate), but they are easier to set up, and to store during cooler periods.
This is pretty amusing but highlights the distortions caused by the huge implicit rent subsidy that car parking usually receives. Where else can you hire private space in the centre of a city on an hourly basis for the rates that car sharing companies charge?
Not the case in Japan. All cars must have an assigned parking space registered with the police. Apartments are not required to have parking spaces. Thus the daily charge to rent a car space in the middle of Tokyo is usually twenty or more dollars. These car sharing services all have dedicated parking spaces for each rental car.
This the parking space does not carry a marginal cost for the operator. Rather the problem with not driving is the lost marginal charge for milage.
Tokyo also has anti idling policies. Thus these car rental services will not want to be associated with such an illegal activity.
600 dollars for the ~10 sq meters a car takes up is still pretty cheap for Tokyo. There could be several stories of housing above that parking spot. How much is the average rent per square meter? Twenty dollars or so?
Tokyo you "must" have an assigned parking space - but in other areas, this is not a requirement. Right next door in Chiba-shi and Saitama there is no requirement to provide proof of parking space.
You might be thinking of Kei-cars. One of the benefits of such cars is they do not require a dedicated parking space.
From personal experience I can assure you Saitama requires a registered parking space, I registered it myself. The dealer would not release the car to us until we could prove the registration.
> huge implicit rent subsidy that car parking usually receives
I don't think car parking gets a rent subsidy in Japan. They don't have the US-style zoning with required parking spots per square meter, and when you buy a car you have to prove you have a monthly parking spot (which can be quite expensive due to the land cost)
> Where else can you hire private space in the centre of a city on an hourly basis for the rates that car sharing companies charge
As the article mentions in passing, cybercafes/manga cafes cost around the same as car parking, and you get a private booth, WiFi, sometimes free soft drinks etc. Some have showers and other facilities. http://www.live-matsuya.co.jp/anchor/images/anchor_01.jpg
> I don't think car parking gets a rent subsidy in Japan. They don't have the US-style zoning with required parking spots per square meter, and when you buy a car you have to prove you have a monthly parking spot (which can be quite expensive due to the land cost)
There must be a subsidy here, because these cars are being driven elsewhere (low mileage != no mileage), and the comparison of the car rental cost as being similar to that of the cybercafe implies there is no additional cost of parking. So the parking is free, but it's quite valuable, as demonstrated by their exploitation of it; hence, there's subsidies here somewhere.
The largest car-sharing company is run by a chain of parking lots, so you could say that the parking lot business is subsidizing the car-sharing business.
Anyway, I just looked up some actual prices for central Tokyo:
* Parking, 1 hour: 900 yen
* Car sharing, 1 hour: 900-1,800 yen (depending on car class)
* Cybercafe, 1 hour: 550 yen
So sitting in a car actually costs twice as much as a cybercafe
Sounds like an opportunity to me. Have a rule that you charge by Km travelled or fuel used, whichever is greatest $-wise. Also have a car where the interior can be quickly converted into a bed...a double bed.
Bonus points for electrochromic glass for privacy. The glass can only be activated when the car is fully stopped with the handbrake engaged.
Uses: sleep, sex, rest, air-conditioned space, heated space, eating space, electrical outlet for phone or laptop, quiet room, change room...oh and a car. Basically anything a hotel can be but also portable.
Add automated driving to the equation and who knows what kind of a beast the industry will be in a decade.
Decouple the environmental controls and electrical subsystem from the engine by using a separate electricity generator with a separate fuel supply. Use deep-cycle marine batteries as a buffer, and have the generator turn on to top them off when they get below a threshold. Meter the power usage for the generator, and charge for distance travelled and by power used.
A lot of owner-operator truckers have discrete electricity generators, because running the engine just for HVAC and electric power causes unnecessary maintenance costs. There are even truck stops that pipe in electricity, HVAC, and video channels through an umbilical that hangs down to one of the windows.
A miniaturized RV that is basically a stripped-down mobile motel room will also have a decent post-fleet-vehicle secondary market, as people buy them to live in full-time, or use more like a traditional RV, excepting that it can fit into a van-sized parking space.
Also, I'd just use blackout curtains or aluminum shutters instead of the electrochromic glass, and use a removable or retractable privacy barrier between the driver compartment and the private space. I'd rather use simple and reliable tech for simple requirements.
> A miniaturized RV that is basically a stripped-down mobile motel room will also have a decent post-fleet-vehicle secondary market, as people buy them to live in full-time, or use more like a traditional RV, excepting that it can fit into a van-sized parking space.
You're basically describing what used to be called (here in the United States - circa 1970s-80s) a "conversion van". Today, you'd probably use something like one of the larger/tall "Ford Transit Connect" vans; which I wouldn't doubt that some company does conversions on, for sale as mini RVs.
Although looking at the numbers, it's a whack bigger than a Transit Connect - 20 cm longer than the long wheelbase version, and weighs half a tonne more.
Mind you, the classic VW bus is about the same length and weight as the short wheelbase Transit Connect!
In fact they are fairly popular with the set of campers who travel to more remote places (I.E. national forest campgrounds instead of large RV parks). For instance, https://sportsmobile.com/sportsmobile-4x4/ offers 4x4 conversion vans for these uses, as well as more traditional 4x2 conversion vans for on-road use.
Google for Volkswagen Westfalias. They are, sadly, no longer in production, but they are exactly what you have in mind, and their internal layout was about as good as it gets in terms of comfort/utility per square foot. I had one back in the late 90's/early 2000's, and I regret to this day that I sold it. It was awesome.
I work a side job doing medical work at events. Often these events go late into the night or even the whole night. I often have to struggle with do I drive home while sleepy and use a caffeine pill to help stay alert/awake, or do I try and sleep in my small car. I am 6'5" and drive a small kia rio so sleeping in my car sucks.
I would definitely consider using something like this! AirBnB and hotels cost much too much when I just want a few hours of sleep before driving home. Not to mention sometimes I finish early in the morning and getting something to sleep in during the day only is usually not possible.
On top of that sometimes I work a shift, then have a few hour gap before another shift. I am in a city an hour or two away from home so going home is not an option. Being able to have a private space I could just rest in or watch a movie would be incredibly nice.
We need private pod systems around cities. Unfortunately I could see them being abused.
I've struggled with similar issues before - when travelling, or out in a city, where to do some quiet work, or take a call, or speak to a group of colleagues?
I've explored short-term (i.e. hourly) office space rentals, but IME the low headline rates ("from...") become a lot higher when you dig into the specifics and have minimum spends. I'd happily pay $<=20-30 for a convenient small quiet office for an hour, but not $80+. I've also never found a service that offers anything like the low friction that (from the article) unlocking a car remotely would offer.
I wonder if this area is ready for some disruption...?
You mean disruption like: "park" a large number of trailers in cities, containing small office rooms, small apartments, hotel rooms, rows of lockers...whatever. Then rent out those and undercut other market participants which actually need to pay for the buildings and properties in which they operate, while you just "park" your relatively-cheap custom trailers in areas where this is free of charge.
Not that many places near a city you can park a trailer free of charge - and if there were, you can bet this scheme would accelerate charging for them.
I suppose the next phase would be electric self-driving vehicles, circulating endlessly on the roads while the occupants sleep or study. That would probably force the city to implement tiered congestion pricing to force them out.
I've seen advertising boards on trailers parked by the side of roads in public parking spaces. Angled to face into the traffic, so probably not parked temporarily.
Building based businesses serve the baseline demand, and mobile businesses serve the surging and peaking demand. They are in competition, but neither can capture 100% of the other's market share, because they are not perfect substitutes for each other.
If they already have the parking capacity and use it for rental cars and then realize people just want to sit in box I don’t see anything particularly bad about buying cheaper, more practical boxes for that purpose instead of buying more expensive impractical boxes?
In theory, co-working spaces should be able to supply this option. But the ones I've seen are barebones at best - temporary setups made out of plywood in old office buildings that would otherwise remain empty, big open spaces where you can rent a desk but only if you do it for at least a month, etc.
While IMO they could just as well divide the place up into smaller offices. Probably cost prohibitive though. As in cost for the end user, not for the co-working space.
A quiet, peaceful place with library-style tables. Like...a library.
More seriously, companies like Spacious are doing what you're describing. Much cheaper than WeWork. You work out of an off-hours restaurant, but it's a designated quiet/work zone and they have free coffee. I'm not affiliated, and I actually didn't enjoy it, but it might interest you.
In theory you can make a phone call anywhere nowadays, but often you want privacy to discuss something sensitive or a quiet background for professionalism's sake.
I'd love to see businesses have phone booths you could rent by the minute, although I don't know how viable that would be as a use of space in a major city.
The ninehours capsule hotel chain in Japan does offer desks in some of their locations for a rather reasonable price of ¥300 (about 3 dollars) per hour.
Anyone else hate car sharing services? Honestly I just found the experience increadibly stressful.
Before I go anywhere, is every little scratch and dent listed in the little handbook?
If I clip something in a carpark (like a bollard or tall curb) I've got to spend 30 minutes on the phone explaining it to the person on the other end then pay some hard to determine fee.
On my way back to the spot if I get caught in traffic there is another fine for being late.
That's before we get into the difficulty of how you'd do it with a small child with a pram and car seat etc.
Just spitballing here but it makes me think there should just be an option to rent a dinged up, scratched up car for cheaper. The policy would be like “Cosmetic damage ok. As long as there’s no functional damage, you’re good.” I personally don’t give a flying f—— if my rental car looks like a junkyard lot special, as long as it drives me safely to my destination. Plus it saves me stress if some dbag dings my rental in a parking lot.
I guess maybe the counter argument for this (other than rental companies fighting it because I’m sure they shadily draw in some revenue from gauging people on fees for cosmetic damage) is it might be harder to catch functional damage if you stop checking for cosmetic damage. Though, I’m not so sure that’s true.
The car sharing service I use here in Quebec, does have a "Cosmetic damage ok. As long as there’s no functional damage, you’re good". I would probably still spend 10 minutes on the phone to make sure it's alright, but they are clear in their policy that scratch are fine (and based on the damage of the back corners of some of their older cars, it's definitely fine).
Their insurance is quite generous too, at first the deductible were 300$, they did increase it to 600$ but for 50$ a year you can remove it altogether. If you don't lower it, they charge 1$ more per trip, so in my case, I pay 50$ a year and there's no risk of fees.
I rented once from a cheap car hire once and was caught off guard by the sales assistant. Like he looked diligently for every scratch and ding. Afterwards, I could not sleep from the stress. Too worried about road debris and, pedestrians, and farm animals scratching the car. So the next morning I returned it and went to Hertz. The rule there is anything larger than a quarter is marked. That seems somewhat reasonable instead of going around the car with a flashlight.
I don't stress that much personnaly. I'm in Quebec and I use Communauto. They don't care about scratch or dent in the car. They also answer the phone quite quickly, it certainly wouldn't take 30 minutes.
Their insurance is quite generous too, at first the deductible were 300$, they did increase it to 600$ but for 50$ a year you can remove it altogether. If you don't lower it, they charge 1$ more per trip, so in my case, I pay 50$ a year and there's no risk of fees.
On my way back I always check and make sure I have a good buffer and increase the reservation if needed.
When we scrapped our old '90ies Opel Astra we kept the passengers seat and made it into a funky-looking but insanely comfy regular chair at home by attaching it with some screws to a simple base made of wood, so it is high enough to sit it.
At some point my dad said he's sad we didn't keep the drivers seat as well.
Did you watch re-runs of Top Gear on Dave too? I am surprised given the popularity of the show that more people haven't gone for the car-seats-at-home option. You get head rests into the bargain, plus, if you need to re-upholster there are after market seat covers and even those bead things that people had in their cars then.
Essentially all these seats go for scrap so you could get the leather seats from a 7-series BMW to have a mega cool sofa at home complete with arm rest and cup-holders. With a few more bits of wood you could make some outer arm-rests. Heated/cooled seats could be nice too.
Maybe there is a 1990's sweet spot where the electronics aren't present so adjustment can be done with mechanical controls, as per your Astra option. A Transit Van could have particularly good pickings with the right vintage.
Nah, I haven't watched any Top Gear. But the seat was just always so comfy in a way none of the seats in the never cars I've been in was. I think it is due to how the seat envelopes you, in a way reminiscent of race cars (which the Astra was not, by any stretch of imagination).
I think heated seats could be possible as well, I assume the required electronics and the protocols they speak for regulation should be rather simple. But given the seat is at home there is not that much need to heat it up :)
Something I'm planning on doing at some point, is to make a frame to attach the back seat of my Jeep on, to turn it into a "couch". It would be great for camping, or in the garage.
There was a company that sold a frame for doing just that, but they went out of business. Fortunately, you can still easily get all the attachment points/latches and such, and welding up some simple legs and whatnot isn't that hard.
I was recently chair shopping, and thought the same - tried one of those gaming chairs, and it was terrible. Maybe it was the demo model, I dunno - but I couldn't see sitting in it for hours.
An actual racing seat for a car, though - those can be really comfortable. The closest I own is the set of Recaro's in my Isuzu VehiCROSS (they came standard with the vehicle); even as old as they are, they are super nice for driving. I could see using one for an office seat.
Maybe I should look into a cheaper racing seat (I could not afford an actual Recaro seat) for my next office chair? Maybe something from Jegs would work...hmm.
I love Times Car Sharing and use it heavily, but I find the pricing structure a little bit obtuse:
There are various "packs" for example a 6 hour pack, 12 hour pack etc. The 6 hour pack means you don't get charged anything extra for fuel/kilometer. The other packs do charge you a fixed rate per kilometer.
There are also special packs at nighttime. The app doesn't really help you pick the best one for you or minimise your price.
Here's an example:
Book a car from 5.45 to 11.30. You're 15 minutes short of the 6 hour pack so you pay the basic time rate.
Now change the booking to 5.45 to 11.45. You now pay the 6 hour rate (4000 yen iirc).
Move the booking to 6 to midnight. Now you pay 2000 yen because it's night-time.
Overall I love the car sharing experience, it sure as hell beats paying 20,000 yen a month for a car parking space. I just wish they made this a bit clearer/easier to use.
These cars start at around 400 yen for 30 minutes so the love hotel is more expensive, and they typically want to rent for a block of a few hours, but pricing usually works out to around 1000 - 1500 yen ($10 - $15) per hour at a love hotel.
Of course, you get a real bed with a love hotel, so it might be worth the extra if all you want to do is sleep, though the walls aren't super soundproof.
I wonder how long it will take for 'cars' to appear that are technically roadworthy but have a better layout for this kind of thing, or maybe a double decker could be converted for the purpose.
This reminds me - I remember hearing that the whole reason trailer parks exist is because in some places the laws for vehicle financing were vastly different than home financing. As a result, banks had an incentive to lend to vehicle buyers with income/credit ratings they could not approve home loans for.
Someone figured out they could open up an entirely new market by slapping wheels on tiny homes and calling them vehicles, even if no one would ever intend to move them anywhere.
The whole thing is predatory, but it's an interesting case study in perverse incentives.
At this very moment I am sitting in a dealer-provided loaner car by a strip mall, because I have to wait for my own car to be repaired and I need to make phone calls. There is no other space nearby where I can do that for love or money, including the dealership waiting room.
I asked for the loaner vehicle for this purpose specifically. The car has AC and privacy. I get it. I wish it also had a desk.
Sounds like people would pay for a small, readily-accessible private space. At first I thought this could be better served by having a proper space and building to house these spaces but maybe, unintentionally, parking a bunch of cars around for people to rent is actually a much lower barrier to entry than dealing with zoning and inspections and regulations.
It wouldn't have to be much larger, though it would probably need some kind of small A/C system, like you'd find on top of an RV. Put a bunch of batteries and/or a small genset under the seat area, a dropdown table on the door, a plug for power, and maybe optional 4/5G wifi. Add a credit card reader on the outside to take payment. Put a bunch on trailers and drop them off in places...
There's gotta be a reason why this hasn't been done already - none of the tech needed is that special, most of it is already "off the shelf". There must be some kind of laws or regulations preventing it?
Japan is an excellent place for visiting but not for living unless you luckily find a proper employer (might be yourself), which is also true to rental car. It's adventurous urban camping if you are a visitor.
Most of the cities in Japan are enough safe for adults to walk outside even at midnight, and there are konbinis for clothing and food. So going to a gym (for shower) + renting a car (for sleep) can be more reasonable than staying at a hotel, and maybe you will have a priceless experience when figuring out how to survive in a center of the city.
In reality, on the other hand, as this article says, the shared-car is a built-in system among the working poor. Laborers in Japan work too long, and their commute takes too long so the car is a savior to maximize their sleep time.
I am always surprised more young people won't buy cheap trailers or old RVs and just won't park it in free parking lot, would not be problem in many European countries and it beats rent in big cities of you have some savings to buy it, bonus points for using it for actually traveling in summer
I have my own apartment without mortgage but I am still considering buying some van, parking it in front of my residential building and using it as extremely cheap and easily accessible storage space. heck according laws car doesn't even need to have license plate, it just need to look like it's drive worthy, so not even yearly insurance fee
> I have my own apartment without mortgage but I am still considering buying some van, parking it in front of my residential building and using it as extremely cheap and easily accessible storage space.
If you're going to go that route, look into a used moving truck; much more space, easier to modify for storage (or if you want to go "tiny home" in the future), and likely much more secure (being a closed box in the back). They don't tend to be very expensive (although they also don't tend to have great mileage per gallon or litre of fuel - but neither do most vans of any good size).
> heck according laws car doesn't even need to have license plate, it just need to look like it's drive worthy, so not even yearly insurance fee
If you're in the United States, you might want to verify this. Usually, you need registration, plates and tags on a vehicle that isn't parked or used on private land. Your landlord may or may not be ok with having such a vehicle on their property. Insurance would be optional, but you might want to speak to your agent to find out whether your renter's policy would cover any losses from the van, or if you can get a separate rider for that - or if you need completely separate insurance coverage.
"likely much more secure (being a closed box in the back)"
The moving trucks I've used are not very solid at all in the back. Googling, it appears that even larger trucks are made with a box that is mainly 1 mm thick aluminum (and that is claimed to be "above industry standards).
This certainly isn't a uniquely Japanese phenomenon, but I feel like it's definitely something I'd expect to hear about from Japan.
That touch of unconcerned practicality.
Also, the delicious boxed lunches sold everywhere, combined with the social stigma about eating them anywhere that is not a private space or a space already devoted to eating.
It looks like these companies could branch out a bit and add small conference rooms (like a small KTV room), cafeteria areas (small stand up tables), or small booths. I’m a big surprised they didn’t find their card being used as love hotels on wheels, but that may be understandable if most are kei cars.
They probably aren't talking about the ones used as love hotels on wheels. They could even be inflating those other niche uses in front of the media, in order to distance themselves from that other use.
I find it strange that the places where this happens are so compressed that people feel like they literally have "make the space" to do normal life activities.
What about public squares, parks, train stations, seating in/around office plaza's, libraries, cafe's?
> One respondent to the company's survey said they rented vehicles to nap in or use for a workspace. Another person stored bags and other personal belongings in the rental car when nearby coin lockers were full.
We suspected his claims of it being a comfortable place to get work done didn't fit with renting it from say midnight to 5 but upon an "investigation" we saw books and papers on the dash, the dome lights on, you know, deep study.
Still think it's kinda strange... He was middle aged and married. My theory was he had a snoring wife at home and was taking night school or something.
There was another gentleman who would book the cars at night and also go nowhere for hours. Upon investigating him he was listening to fiction books on tape... Relaxing with the seat back and enjoying the novel. Rented around the same time almost every evening.