Euro electric-vehicle rental company drives into Miami as part of U.S. expansion

A European electric-vehicle rental company called Ufodrive has arrived in Miami with a fleet of Teslas and other models for people to rent.

The car company recently opened locations in Brickell and Wynwood with a fleet of about 20 cars customers can pick up there 24 hours a day. A third Miami pickup site is expected to open soon.

Edmund Read, the chief operating officer, said an app allows customers to reserve and pay for the cars without coming in contact with any Ufodrive employees.

“What differentiates this from everyone is in the app. In less than two minutes, you can do booking,” Read said.

Drivers have to be at least 18 to rent the electric cars and have to return them to the respective Miami pickup sites. The daily rental rate starts at $41 and includes charging and insurance. After driving 150 miles a day, you have to pay $25 more for every 100 miles you drive.

Ufodrive CEO Aidan McClean’s desire to develop the electric-vehicle rental company a decade ago stemmed from his passion for sustainability. Based in Luxembourg, McClean has bicycled throughout Europe and the United States. The one thing he noticed wherever he went was the difference in air quality.

“I was really passionate about the air we breathe,” he said. “I’m a lifelong cyclist and spent a lot of time breathing in air. Is there any way I can help [improve air quality]? With the rise of Tesla and the rebirth of electric vehicles, I saw this was going to turn into a revolution and wanted to know how we could become a part of that.”

McClean thinks an electric-vehicle rental service is ideal for Miami. As a city still developing a public transportation infrastructure, he thinks Ufodrive can complement the city’s transit options. Miami, he said, is no different from other major American cities that are behind global adoption of electric vehicles.

“Take Europe for a second,” he said. “Europe has been two to three years ahead in charging infrastructure. With [President Joe] Biden’s latest infrastructure bill, Miami will be no exception. It’s a big city with residents condensed along the beach area. People in Miami don’t necessarily need to own vehicles.”

The electric rental car firm has launched in American cities such as New York, Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston and plans to expand to every major U.S. city by the end of this year. Overseas, the company has rental sites in United Kingdom, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Spain.

To better integrate other rental car operators to use electric vehicles, Ufodrive offers its contactless rental technology to companies like Hertz and Uber. Still, the mass adoption of electric vehicles is still a work in progress in Florida and the U.S.

A concern for electric vehicle critics is the need for charging stations. To remedy what McClean referred to as “range anxiety,” car renters are provided with real-time help and information on nearby charging stations. With access to “all-you-can-eat electricity,” he said the company prides itself on providing 20 million miles of travel to date without any customer charging issues.

Following automobile history, McClean said the problem of access to electric-charging stations will slowly fade away.

“When the first petrol cars came out at the turn of the 1900s, there were no gas stations,” he said. “The reality was within 20 years, the entire country had been paved with drivable roads and there were gas stations within miles.”