General Motors (News - Alert) Company has pitched a “start your own car rental business” for those who own a GM vehicle and are equipped with the OnStar system, allowing them to rent out automobiles.  

The idea of the business enterprise is that subscribers to the OnStar service list their vehicles for rent through a program operated by RelayRides. The owner supplies the gas, which averages about $10 an hour, RelayRides takes a 40-percent cut, and provides a $1 million insurance policy for the owner and $300,000 for the renter.

OnStar provides RelayRides with access to 6 million subscribers, to whom they originally had trouble attracting to rent out their cars. “Having access to millions and millions of cars should accelerate our growth,” explained Shelby Clark, founder of RealyRides, and will assist owners to earn some extra cash.

Another recent private-party car-rental company known as Wheelz has narrowed in on college campuses as well, where the service knows that students could use some extra cash. 

“Students tend to be early adopters, and on a college campus, both sides of the marketplace exist in close geography,” said Aaron Platshon, head of marketing for Wheelz, as well as with headquarters in San Francisco. 

The company has become quite good at pitching their service as a way for college students to make money during their school year, as most often need to.

RelayRides launches their vehicles on the company’s website at http://www.relayrides.com, listing their cars by name and brand. Certain states such as California, Oregon and Washington only allow these particular rentals if the annual revenue received does not exceed the yearly expenses of owning and operating it, such as interest or lease payments.

But according to Clark, “RelayRides works nationally because no state prohibits the rental of private vehicles.” 

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