October 28, 2024 • 21 mins
We bought a Cybertruck. We rent it out on Turo. Here’s how it’s going and here’s the story of why we decided it was a worthwhile investment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Life
Investing Podcast with Jasonand Rachel Wagner.
We want to talk about kind of acool little thing that we've
been doing with Turo, the carsharing platform.
So, rachel, why don't you tellpeople everyone about the
mastermind plan here?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, so Jason came to me back in 2020 and wanted to
buy a Tesla Model Y and I waslike are you kidding me?
We can't afford that.
We can't buy a Tesla.
What are you talking about?
Back?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
in 2020.
Back in 2020.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, and he's like no, no, no, look at this great
plan I have.
We're just going to rent it out.
We're going to rent it out onTuro to other people because we
don't always need two vehicles.
You know, they steal it orthey're crazy, I don't know.
(00:51):
It just seems like a really badidea, right?
And you're like, oh, come on,just trust people.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Okay.
The response wasn't just comeon, just trust people Pretty
close.
The reason I felt like that wasa good idea is because, tesla,
you can only see exactly wherethe car is.
There's a GPS on it, right, sowe can pull up on the app.
You can see exactly where thecar is.
There's a level of comfort.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
And you were like Turo has insurance.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Right, yeah, turo, and yeah, turo has an insurance.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Right.
So I just like I wouldn't likeit rent out our minivan, right
there's.
There's no gps on our minivan.
We just have to trust peoplelike, okay, you're supposed to
be back at this time, where'sthe car?
You know?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
yeah, I don't remember the conversation about
the gps, but that is certainlythat's true.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
That's the biggest piece.
Why I wanted to do it wasbecause tesla had that
technology where you could justsee exactly and you can have
some controls from afar?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
yep, yeah, so we did that.
We bought the Model Y and wedidn't pay for it.
For what a year.
Yeah, our payments were coveredfor a year through rentals.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, and we had rented it out probably like
maybe four times a month.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Like three to four times a month and people were
paying like between $200 and$250 a day to rent it at the
time because it was the hottestit was the hottest car.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, it was back when they were very new on the
market.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
And people were just very interested in renting it
just to try it.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Most of the people who rentedit were just like I'm thinking
about buying one, but I want totest it out.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
And so we did it.
We did it over the course ofthe year, and we only had to pay
200 a month to own the vehicleso we used it a lot.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, I mean because it was only gone a couple times
a month yeah, yeah, so it wasand we never had any issues
right it always came back andyeah people took good care of it
and yeah, yeah, because, andthis was back when there weren't
like a ton of chargers either.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
We kind of recognized that withthe higher asking price of the
rental, it did attract a higherquality client.
So if you're going to be paying$200 to $300 a day to rent it,
or $250 to $250, it was a higherprice, so people were just
(03:07):
going to take care of it alittle bit more, and that's
actually what we ended upfinding.
Only a couple of times Ibelieve that I remember like
they brought it back with Irented it, I let somebody who
was going to drive it to promand they had all of the sequins
dresses that the girls werewearing and like the glitter was
everywhere and I'm like.
I am never allowing the vehicleto be rented for prom yeah, that
(03:29):
was the worst thing that everhappened.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Not that big of a deal.
That was funny though so yeah,so yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So now we've done the same exact thing and we bought
the cyber truck yeah, now thecyber truck is a hundred
thousand dollars.
That was the foundation series,and I think it ended up being
like $110,000 out the door withtaxes and fees and whatnot.
Our payment we put down $25,000into the vehicle and so our
(03:58):
payment is about $1,300.
Okay, Ouch, yeah.
So we rent the Cybertruck doingthe exact same thing.
Now this is our third vehicle.
Now it's not a primary vehicle.
It is available whenever wewould need it, but it's not
something we drive every day.
And so I have it out on Turoand just within the first few
months of doing this I mean,it's October 21st right now and
(04:28):
let's see, we've already earned$3, four hundred dollars.
We've made two payments so farof that would be twenty six
hundred, so we've made thirtyfour hundred.
We have another eleven hundredcoming in from bookings that are
already booked and so far itseems to be doing okay.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, it's been working.
And we've only had one horrorstory.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well, I guess kind of we kind of had like a couple we
had a little a ding.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
But it wasn't anything major.
So yeah, somebody had a littlebit of a.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah.
So how this whole process worksis that I have a Realtor
lockbox.
It's a realtor lockbox, it's acentury lock lockbox.
It scrambles the code and Ijust leave the truck parked in
my driveway and the customercomes.
I give them the one day codefor the lockbox, they grab the
key out of there.
I send them three tutorialvideos to watch, to like how to
(05:18):
operate the truck, because justdifferent.
And then they're on their wayand so I never meet them.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I give them a lockbox code.
We've got a ring cam at thedoor.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, we've got a ring cam and again we can always
see where the vehicle is.
And so, yeah, I never actuallymeet them.
And they take it for one day tothree days and then they bring
it back and they leave in thedriveway and they put the
lockbox or the key back in thelockbox and they go and again, I
just I never meet them.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And you provide them like video tutorials on how to
do the basic stuff of workingthe vehicle.
Just the basic Tesla tutorialsand they choose up front, like
do they want to charge it or dothey want to bring it back?
Yeah, there's a couple.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yep, there's a couple add-ons, Just like you would a
regular rental right, yeah, ifthey, if they supercharge it
while they have it out.
You know it bills back to mycredit card and then I just
actually what's really cool isthat Turo now has the ability to
link your Tesla account so thatyou don't have to manually
build them back.
It just does it for you, whichis super awesome.
(06:13):
It has that functionality fortolls as well.
It's not as good, though.
It's Illinois, Illinoisreporting the tolls.
Getting it to the platform islike it's not that seamless
imagine that yeah yeah, allright, so let's get into the
juicy stuff here.
Okay, so we just had a guy takeit this last weekend and he came
(06:35):
picked it up and then hemessages me and he's like hey,
man, is the truck still drive ifthere's a zero percent battery?
Well we had a.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, we had a little bit of a heads up because we
were leaving scarlet soccer gameand you're like, oh, the
truck's supposed to be back bynow.
And I'm like, well, it's not.
I haven't gotten anynotification that there's been
any movement.
And so I open up the app and Ilook at the truck and I was like
, oh, it's got three percentbattery and he's not near a
supercharger and he's over anhour away.
(07:05):
It's definitely not going to beback.
And like two seconds later,jason gets this message hey man,
does the car stop driving if ithits 0%?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Let me read it to you .
This is better.
Hey, your reservation ended atnoon.
What's your ETA?
That's me texting him.
He says I'm charging it becauseit was on one.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Which he wasn't charging it.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
And also, you live about an hour from me, I'm 35
minutes from you.
Will it cut off at zero?
Okay, please charge it.
Yes, I can't imagine the truckwill continue to drive at 0%.
I've been to two chargingstations.
They weren't working.
So come to find out he went tonon-Tesla superchargers.
(07:48):
Or he went to non-Teslastations in which I didn't have
the attachment for him to gothere Because there's charger
stations all over the place, butfair mistake, fair mistake.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Not everybody knows that just those generic chargers
work for Tesla yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I said okay, fair mistake, not everybody knows
that.
Just those generic chargerswork for Tesla.
Yeah, I said okay, drive safe,keep me updated.
And then he says what's yourphone number?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Well, and so I'm still monitoring on the app
because I'm like this is notgoing to work out.
There's no way this guy isgoing to make it.
There's no way he's going tomake it.
And I'm watching and I can seehe's driving 90 miles an hour on
the highway with 1% left andhe's got like five miles to go
and I'm like dude.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
So when you're driving an electric vehicle, you
want to preserve energy, and soyou don't go fast.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
And normally, like I haven't done it in the
Cybertruck, so I don't know ifit works on there, but in the Y
it will say to you, as you'reheading to your destination,
keep it under this speed.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
If you want to make it there, right, yeah, yeah,
he's going 90 miles an hour.
He's going 90 miles an hour.
Here's what we did learn isthat the truck will still drive
below zero zero.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So on zero, it does drive yeah, it said you'll reach
your destination with negativetwo.
And so we're like does thatmean it's gonna allow him to go
to negative two?
And so I'm googling, you knowlike what happens?
And it said there's a smallamount of reserve, but it
doesn't tell you how muchreserve there is yeah, so it's
just an open question.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So I guess yeah.
So he made it to thesupercharger.
This is the craziest thing.
So he made it to thesupercharger and as he's going
to drive up to it on negativetwo, the truck dies.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Right in front of the supercharger.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
He's like eight feet away.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, so not close enough to plug in.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
No, and he's forward-facing.
So he's not backward-facingbecause you have to back into
these superchargers, because thecharging port is in the back.
He's forward-facing and so hecalls me.
He's like hey, man, how do Iget this thing into neutral?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
You won't believe this, but the truck died like
eight feet away from the chargerand I just want to get into
neutral so I could push it andyou know we'll get it connected.
And no panic in his voice,right, just like super chill.
Yeah, well, he whatever he's.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
You know he just kind of made it sound like you know,
driving on e was like somethinghe did.
You know, like he, he ended upsaying man, this is why I'm not
gonna get during thisconversation.
He's like man, this is why I'mnot gonna get electric vehicle,
because you know what?
It's a lot harder to like getback going again if you just got
a gas vehicle.
You just gotta get some gas andput it in there and like you
(10:13):
keep going and I'm like okay,it's, it's very clear.
like you, you've been in thissituation before you drive on E,
just because, like you could,just you could just tell, and so
, anyways, I'm like trying tofigure out, like, how do I get
into the neutral?
I don't know, it's a goodquestion, and you really can't
do anything when the car runsout of battery.
(10:34):
Like you can't do anythingRight, and that is kind of the
scary part, because everythinglocks up on you.
So we sent a tow truck outthere through the tesla app.
I went out there and I thoughtthat they would send out like a
charger person to like chargeyou, but that's not.
That's not the case.
I don't think they do that theyused to do that.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I thought they used to do that, I don't.
They must not do it anymore,because now they yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
so now they just they send out a tow truck that would
take you to a charger.
Well, we just needed the towtruck to tow it eight feet.
Well, the first guy that cameout, he's like Tesla.
Gave me their number.
He's like but it's a Cybertruck, I don't know what I'm doing,
and so he's like we've doneplenty of Teslas but honestly
haven't done a Cybertruck.
(11:21):
So first guy couldn't help himand he wanted to charge him $80
for literally doing nothing.
And so now I'm hearing it fromthe customer who's like, man
Jason, this guy, he came outhere, he didn't do anything, and
now he wants to charge me $80.
I'm like, well, I don't know,it's a call, it's a service call
.
He and I'm like, oh man, so nowI got, it's got a good point
(11:45):
right.
So I'm the middleman callingthe tow truck company and saying
, hey, man, he went out thereand literally didn't do anything
.
He's like, yeah, but he's gotto get paid.
I'm like, yeah, but he didn'tdo anything.
And he's like, okay, I'm goingto send out another guy.
And, long story short, thesecond guy came out, didn't
speak English, but at least wasable to tow the truck eight feet
(12:07):
and get it connected.
Oh, and in the meantime, here'sthe funny part.
So I'm on the phone with thecustomer the whole time and I've
never met him, but I was doinga showing nearby and I knew
where the truck was.
I'm like, oh, I'm only fiveminutes away from him, let's go
check out the scene.
Oh, I'm only five minutes awayfrom him, let's go check out the
scene.
And so I did an undercover.
(12:29):
Undercover.
Just sit there and he is at a.
He's at a supercharger that isjust jam-packed.
I've never seen so many Teslasparked in full at the
supercharger.
And everybody is like staringat this tow truck with the cyber
truck, you know trying to backit up into this space and
everybody's just like they'vegot their family out of their
(12:51):
car, they're watching, they'regoing up to him.
It's just like it's a scene.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
I know I was cracking up.
You call me and you're like,hey, I'm here.
And I was like, oh, how's itgoing?
I haven't made myself known,I'm just sitting here watching
the Cybertruck on a tow truck.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I was just like, oh, my God, it's kind of comical.
Yeah, and so, anyways, here'swhat happens.
He does finally get itconnected to the supercharger
and he calls me.
He's like Jason, we've got it,but it's not charging.
I'm like, oh, I think I readabout this is that you have to
jump it.
(13:32):
There's another smaller batterythat you have to jump to unlock
charging the big battery.
And so I told him that he'slike dude, this guy doesn't
speak english, it's so.
So, again, I'm making so manyphone calls back to the tow
company and I'm telling him I'mlike hey, I think you have to do
this.
And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll talk to my driver.
And anyways, ends up happeningthey finally get it charged.
(13:54):
We get the notification thatthe, the cyber truck, is
charging and he calls me and I'mlike dude, let's go, because it
has been five hours since itdied.
It has been five hours and I'msitting there watching this guy.
I'm like dude.
This guy looks like he's justabout to bail and he told me
(14:15):
over the phone that he wanted tobail.
He's like dude, the first towtruck driver.
He's like dude, you should justleave the car.
He's like man, I'm not going todo that, though.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
He's like you know, but I do got to get to work.
I'm shocked he didn't leave thecar.
I mean, I thought for sure withthat first, like when he ran
out of battery.
I thought he was just going toleave it.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah, I thought he was
going to leave it too.
So then he gets it all chargedup and I'm thinking, you know,
it's like it's like six o'clock6 pm and he's already he was
supposed to return it at noonand he's like, hey, hey, so is
it gonna be like, you know, likeanother full day charge or
another full day that I have topay for for having the vehicle?
(14:56):
And I'm like, yeah, I think so.
He's like, well, well, in thatcase, I think I just want to
keep it another day.
He's like I just want to get mymoney.
I'm like, okay, I said, allright, well, we'll just extend
your trip and keep it.
And you know, whatever, there'snobody, nobody behind you, so
you can.
And so that evening he's likedriving it all over and I get a
(15:19):
notification that says chargethe truck because the battery
life is like down at five.
I know.
And what's funny is that whenwe were having a conversation
about him asking if he couldkeep it longer, I'm like, yeah,
sure, I said you know, just makesure you don't get yourself in
this situation again.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And he almost did, I know.
I opened it up and I was likewhat, this thing is down to 7%,
like what, oh man.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So funny, so funny, so funny.
But no, it came back in onepiece and we're all squared away
.
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So here's a million dollar question.
You obviously get rated as ahost for the vehicles and then
you get to rate the renters.
So what did you rate this guy?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I gave him a four.
He gave him a four out of five.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
And why did you give him a four?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Because actually I was impressed that he didn't
leave, because I thought thatwas going to be the case, that
he was just going to abandon thevehicle and then he would have
got a zero or like a one.
But no, he was nice the entiretime.
He picked up my phone calls, hecalled me back, you know, he
kind of kept me updated andwhatsoever, but at least he
(16:28):
didn't leave, yeah.
And so I gave him a four and Iwrote in the comment took care
of the car, because it came backin one piece, right yeah, it
did and clean, it was clean andyeah relatively clean and I said
one small hiccup but wouldinvite him to to rent again
would you?
I, yeah, I would, honestly, Iwould like I actually liked the
guy.
I thought he was great.
(16:48):
I thought he was great.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I would just tell him don't get in that situation
again.
But the thing is is that heprobably would get himself in
that situation just because nochance, I would run to him again
.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
But you and I are different, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
I give people chances .
Speaker 2 (17:02):
You do people usually learn from their mistakes.
Well so I guess he did, becausehe didn't take it to zero, he
just took it down to six rightor seven.
It got close.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
You know who's to say that.
He was gonna, you know, bringit down to zero again.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
But you know it got close and so yeah, I would I
would run to him again how manyrentals do you think we've had
in total between the twovehicles?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
oh, I can tell you.
Oh, okay, yeah, I actually havethat stat.
The truck has completed ninetrips.
We've got like five pending,right now like upcoming okay and
the model y for the.
Over the course of the year itdid 38 trips 38.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Oh wow, okay, so like 47 trips in total and we've
only had one real horror story.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, really, and that wasn't really a horror
story.
A horror story would be.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Well, we thought it was going to be.
I thought it was going to beabandoned an hour away from our
house with no charge, but itwasn't.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
That would have turned it into a horror story.
Yeah, but the funny thing aboutthis guy was he's like so,
jason, so who's paying for thetow truck?
And I'm like, well, you kind ofgot yourself in this situation,
don't you think it's likesomething you should cover?
He's like, yeah, man, but likeit, it ran out of battery and I
was like from from your doingright, it was like he wanted to
(18:26):
pin it on me.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
it's like cover yeah, it was my problem yeah and
you're like well, could you havegotten out of that situation
without the tow truck?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
he's like no yeah, yeah, yeah, so anyways, yeah,
just just a funny debacle there,but yeah, so that's tarot.
So far, so good.
I mean, look, it's the samething as renting apartments,
it's, you know, you're not.
It's not always going to gowell.
Majority of time is going to gowell, but you just need to bake
in some things of likesomebody's probably going to do
(18:55):
something stupid yeah, I mean.
What would have been unfortunateis if you had another rental
lined up for that day and yeah,that would have sucked then you
have to cancel that and yeah,yeah, yeah, yeahceling on
somebody Changing somebody'splans would have been a double
whammy there.
Yeah, but overall, yeah, no,pretty good, pretty good.
Somebody's probably going toask well, how does the insurance
(19:16):
work if somebody gets in a caraccident?
So you can choose yourdifferent deductible amounts.
I actually choose the 90%,which is I take 90% of the
revenue.
T, which is I take 90% of therevenue.
Turo takes 10% as their fee andthat actually covers the
insurance part of it too.
So my deductible is like 2,500bucks.
So if you want that lower, youcan go to like a zero deductible
(19:37):
and you just agree to give uplike 50 or 40% of the revenue.
Now maybe I would do that with alower value car.
I wouldn't do that with a carthat I'm renting for 300 bucks a
day.
That's a lot of money, you know.
So I'm okay with taking ahigher risk on it.
You know, is it going to biteme in the butt?
(19:57):
I don't know, who knows, figurethat out.
If it does bite me in the butt,then you just adjust it, move
forward.
It's kind of the trial anderror thing.
Some people have a differentrisk tolerance than others.
But anyways.
Yep, so that's how that works,all right.
Well, if you found any value inthe show, you have more
(20:19):
questions about Turo.
I'm not a total expert, butI've done it a few times.
Happy to help, all right, wewill catch you on the next one.
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Life
Investing Podcast with Jasonand Rachel Wagner.
We want to talk about kind of acool little thing that we've
been doing with Turo, the carsharing platform.
So, rachel, why don't you tellpeople everyone about the
mastermind plan here?
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, so Jason came to me back in 2020 and wanted to
buy a Tesla Model Y and I waslike are you kidding me?
We can't afford that.
We can't buy a Tesla.
What are you talking about?
Back?
Speaker 1 (00:29):
in 2020.
Back in 2020.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah, and he's like no, no, no, look at this great
plan I have.
We're just going to rent it out.
We're going to rent it out onTuro to other people because we
don't always need two vehicles.
You know, they steal it orthey're crazy, I don't know.
(00:51):
It just seems like a really badidea, right?
And you're like, oh, come on,just trust people.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Okay.
The response wasn't just comeon, just trust people Pretty
close.
The reason I felt like that wasa good idea is because, tesla,
you can only see exactly wherethe car is.
There's a GPS on it, right, sowe can pull up on the app.
You can see exactly where thecar is.
There's a level of comfort.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
And you were like Turo has insurance.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Right, yeah, turo, and yeah, turo has an insurance.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Right.
So I just like I wouldn't likeit rent out our minivan, right
there's.
There's no gps on our minivan.
We just have to trust peoplelike, okay, you're supposed to
be back at this time, where'sthe car?
You know?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
yeah, I don't remember the conversation about
the gps, but that is certainlythat's true.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
That's the biggest piece.
Why I wanted to do it wasbecause tesla had that
technology where you could justsee exactly and you can have
some controls from afar?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
yep, yeah, so we did that.
We bought the Model Y and wedidn't pay for it.
For what a year.
Yeah, our payments were coveredfor a year through rentals.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Yeah, and we had rented it out probably like
maybe four times a month.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Like three to four times a month and people were
paying like between $200 and$250 a day to rent it at the
time because it was the hottestit was the hottest car.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Yeah, it was back when they were very new on the
market.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
And people were just very interested in renting it
just to try it.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Most of the people who rentedit were just like I'm thinking
about buying one, but I want totest it out.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
And so we did it.
We did it over the course ofthe year, and we only had to pay
200 a month to own the vehicleso we used it a lot.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, I mean because it was only gone a couple times
a month yeah, yeah, so it wasand we never had any issues
right it always came back andyeah people took good care of it
and yeah, yeah, because, andthis was back when there weren't
like a ton of chargers either.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
We kind of recognized that withthe higher asking price of the
rental, it did attract a higherquality client.
So if you're going to be paying$200 to $300 a day to rent it,
or $250 to $250, it was a higherprice, so people were just
(03:07):
going to take care of it alittle bit more, and that's
actually what we ended upfinding.
Only a couple of times Ibelieve that I remember like
they brought it back with Irented it, I let somebody who
was going to drive it to promand they had all of the sequins
dresses that the girls werewearing and like the glitter was
everywhere and I'm like.
I am never allowing the vehicleto be rented for prom yeah, that
(03:29):
was the worst thing that everhappened.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Not that big of a deal.
That was funny though so yeah,so yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So now we've done the same exact thing and we bought
the cyber truck yeah, now thecyber truck is a hundred
thousand dollars.
That was the foundation series,and I think it ended up being
like $110,000 out the door withtaxes and fees and whatnot.
Our payment we put down $25,000into the vehicle and so our
(03:58):
payment is about $1,300.
Okay, Ouch, yeah.
So we rent the Cybertruck doingthe exact same thing.
Now this is our third vehicle.
Now it's not a primary vehicle.
It is available whenever wewould need it, but it's not
something we drive every day.
And so I have it out on Turoand just within the first few
months of doing this I mean,it's October 21st right now and
(04:28):
let's see, we've already earned$3, four hundred dollars.
We've made two payments so farof that would be twenty six
hundred, so we've made thirtyfour hundred.
We have another eleven hundredcoming in from bookings that are
already booked and so far itseems to be doing okay.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, it's been working.
And we've only had one horrorstory.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well, I guess kind of we kind of had like a couple we
had a little a ding.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
But it wasn't anything major.
So yeah, somebody had a littlebit of a.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah.
So how this whole process worksis that I have a Realtor
lockbox.
It's a realtor lockbox, it's acentury lock lockbox.
It scrambles the code and Ijust leave the truck parked in
my driveway and the customercomes.
I give them the one day codefor the lockbox, they grab the
key out of there.
I send them three tutorialvideos to watch, to like how to
(05:18):
operate the truck, because justdifferent.
And then they're on their wayand so I never meet them.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I give them a lockbox code.
We've got a ring cam at thedoor.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, we've got a ring cam and again we can always
see where the vehicle is.
And so, yeah, I never actuallymeet them.
And they take it for one day tothree days and then they bring
it back and they leave in thedriveway and they put the
lockbox or the key back in thelockbox and they go and again, I
just I never meet them.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And you provide them like video tutorials on how to
do the basic stuff of workingthe vehicle.
Just the basic Tesla tutorialsand they choose up front, like
do they want to charge it or dothey want to bring it back?
Yeah, there's a couple.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yep, there's a couple add-ons, Just like you would a
regular rental right, yeah, ifthey, if they supercharge it
while they have it out.
You know it bills back to mycredit card and then I just
actually what's really cool isthat Turo now has the ability to
link your Tesla account so thatyou don't have to manually
build them back.
It just does it for you, whichis super awesome.
(06:13):
It has that functionality fortolls as well.
It's not as good, though.
It's Illinois, Illinoisreporting the tolls.
Getting it to the platform islike it's not that seamless
imagine that yeah yeah, allright, so let's get into the
juicy stuff here.
Okay, so we just had a guy takeit this last weekend and he came
(06:35):
picked it up and then hemessages me and he's like hey,
man, is the truck still drive ifthere's a zero percent battery?
Well we had a.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, we had a little bit of a heads up because we
were leaving scarlet soccer gameand you're like, oh, the
truck's supposed to be back bynow.
And I'm like, well, it's not.
I haven't gotten anynotification that there's been
any movement.
And so I open up the app and Ilook at the truck and I was like
, oh, it's got three percentbattery and he's not near a
supercharger and he's over anhour away.
(07:05):
It's definitely not going to beback.
And like two seconds later,jason gets this message hey man,
does the car stop driving if ithits 0%?
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Let me read it to you .
This is better.
Hey, your reservation ended atnoon.
What's your ETA?
That's me texting him.
He says I'm charging it becauseit was on one.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Which he wasn't charging it.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
And also, you live about an hour from me, I'm 35
minutes from you.
Will it cut off at zero?
Okay, please charge it.
Yes, I can't imagine the truckwill continue to drive at 0%.
I've been to two chargingstations.
They weren't working.
So come to find out he went tonon-Tesla superchargers.
(07:48):
Or he went to non-Teslastations in which I didn't have
the attachment for him to gothere Because there's charger
stations all over the place, butfair mistake, fair mistake.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Not everybody knows that just those generic chargers
work for Tesla yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
I said okay, fair mistake, not everybody knows
that.
Just those generic chargerswork for Tesla.
Yeah, I said okay, drive safe,keep me updated.
And then he says what's yourphone number?
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Well, and so I'm still monitoring on the app
because I'm like this is notgoing to work out.
There's no way this guy isgoing to make it.
There's no way he's going tomake it.
And I'm watching and I can seehe's driving 90 miles an hour on
the highway with 1% left andhe's got like five miles to go
and I'm like dude.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
So when you're driving an electric vehicle, you
want to preserve energy, and soyou don't go fast.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
And normally, like I haven't done it in the
Cybertruck, so I don't know ifit works on there, but in the Y
it will say to you, as you'reheading to your destination,
keep it under this speed.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
If you want to make it there, right, yeah, yeah,
he's going 90 miles an hour.
He's going 90 miles an hour.
Here's what we did learn isthat the truck will still drive
below zero zero.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So on zero, it does drive yeah, it said you'll reach
your destination with negativetwo.
And so we're like does thatmean it's gonna allow him to go
to negative two?
And so I'm googling, you knowlike what happens?
And it said there's a smallamount of reserve, but it
doesn't tell you how muchreserve there is yeah, so it's
just an open question.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So I guess yeah.
So he made it to thesupercharger.
This is the craziest thing.
So he made it to thesupercharger and as he's going
to drive up to it on negativetwo, the truck dies.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Right in front of the supercharger.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
He's like eight feet away.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, so not close enough to plug in.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
No, and he's forward-facing.
So he's not backward-facingbecause you have to back into
these superchargers, because thecharging port is in the back.
He's forward-facing and so hecalls me.
He's like hey, man, how do Iget this thing into neutral?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
You won't believe this, but the truck died like
eight feet away from the chargerand I just want to get into
neutral so I could push it andyou know we'll get it connected.
And no panic in his voice,right, just like super chill.
Yeah, well, he whatever he's.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
You know he just kind of made it sound like you know,
driving on e was like somethinghe did.
You know, like he, he ended upsaying man, this is why I'm not
gonna get during thisconversation.
He's like man, this is why I'mnot gonna get electric vehicle,
because you know what?
It's a lot harder to like getback going again if you just got
a gas vehicle.
You just gotta get some gas andput it in there and like you
(10:13):
keep going and I'm like okay,it's, it's very clear.
like you, you've been in thissituation before you drive on E,
just because, like you could,just you could just tell, and so
, anyways, I'm like trying tofigure out, like, how do I get
into the neutral?
I don't know, it's a goodquestion, and you really can't
do anything when the car runsout of battery.
(10:34):
Like you can't do anythingRight, and that is kind of the
scary part, because everythinglocks up on you.
So we sent a tow truck outthere through the tesla app.
I went out there and I thoughtthat they would send out like a
charger person to like chargeyou, but that's not.
That's not the case.
I don't think they do that theyused to do that.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
I thought they used to do that, I don't.
They must not do it anymore,because now they yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
so now they just they send out a tow truck that would
take you to a charger.
Well, we just needed the towtruck to tow it eight feet.
Well, the first guy that cameout, he's like Tesla.
Gave me their number.
He's like but it's a Cybertruck, I don't know what I'm doing,
and so he's like we've doneplenty of Teslas but honestly
haven't done a Cybertruck.
(11:21):
So first guy couldn't help himand he wanted to charge him $80
for literally doing nothing.
And so now I'm hearing it fromthe customer who's like, man
Jason, this guy, he came outhere, he didn't do anything, and
now he wants to charge me $80.
I'm like, well, I don't know,it's a call, it's a service call
.
He and I'm like, oh man, so nowI got, it's got a good point
(11:45):
right.
So I'm the middleman callingthe tow truck company and saying
, hey, man, he went out thereand literally didn't do anything
.
He's like, yeah, but he's gotto get paid.
I'm like, yeah, but he didn'tdo anything.
And he's like, okay, I'm goingto send out another guy.
And, long story short, thesecond guy came out, didn't
speak English, but at least wasable to tow the truck eight feet
(12:07):
and get it connected.
Oh, and in the meantime, here'sthe funny part.
So I'm on the phone with thecustomer the whole time and I've
never met him, but I was doinga showing nearby and I knew
where the truck was.
I'm like, oh, I'm only fiveminutes away from him, let's go
check out the scene.
Oh, I'm only five minutes awayfrom him, let's go check out the
scene.
And so I did an undercover.
(12:29):
Undercover.
Just sit there and he is at a.
He's at a supercharger that isjust jam-packed.
I've never seen so many Teslasparked in full at the
supercharger.
And everybody is like staringat this tow truck with the cyber
truck, you know trying to backit up into this space and
everybody's just like they'vegot their family out of their
(12:51):
car, they're watching, they'regoing up to him.
It's just like it's a scene.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
I know I was cracking up.
You call me and you're like,hey, I'm here.
And I was like, oh, how's itgoing?
I haven't made myself known,I'm just sitting here watching
the Cybertruck on a tow truck.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
I was just like, oh, my God, it's kind of comical.
Yeah, and so, anyways, here'swhat happens.
He does finally get itconnected to the supercharger
and he calls me.
He's like Jason, we've got it,but it's not charging.
I'm like, oh, I think I readabout this is that you have to
jump it.
(13:32):
There's another smaller batterythat you have to jump to unlock
charging the big battery.
And so I told him that he'slike dude, this guy doesn't
speak english, it's so.
So, again, I'm making so manyphone calls back to the tow
company and I'm telling him I'mlike hey, I think you have to do
this.
And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll talk to my driver.
And anyways, ends up happeningthey finally get it charged.
(13:54):
We get the notification thatthe, the cyber truck, is
charging and he calls me and I'mlike dude, let's go, because it
has been five hours since itdied.
It has been five hours and I'msitting there watching this guy.
I'm like dude.
This guy looks like he's justabout to bail and he told me
(14:15):
over the phone that he wanted tobail.
He's like dude, the first towtruck driver.
He's like dude, you should justleave the car.
He's like man, I'm not going todo that, though.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
He's like you know, but I do got to get to work.
I'm shocked he didn't leave thecar.
I mean, I thought for sure withthat first, like when he ran
out of battery.
I thought he was just going toleave it.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah, I thought he was
going to leave it too.
So then he gets it all chargedup and I'm thinking, you know,
it's like it's like six o'clock6 pm and he's already he was
supposed to return it at noonand he's like, hey, hey, so is
it gonna be like, you know, likeanother full day charge or
another full day that I have topay for for having the vehicle?
(14:56):
And I'm like, yeah, I think so.
He's like, well, well, in thatcase, I think I just want to
keep it another day.
He's like I just want to get mymoney.
I'm like, okay, I said, allright, well, we'll just extend
your trip and keep it.
And you know, whatever, there'snobody, nobody behind you, so
you can.
And so that evening he's likedriving it all over and I get a
(15:19):
notification that says chargethe truck because the battery
life is like down at five.
I know.
And what's funny is that whenwe were having a conversation
about him asking if he couldkeep it longer, I'm like, yeah,
sure, I said you know, just makesure you don't get yourself in
this situation again.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And he almost did, I know.
I opened it up and I was likewhat, this thing is down to 7%,
like what, oh man.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So funny, so funny, so funny.
But no, it came back in onepiece and we're all squared away
.
So yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
So here's a million dollar question.
You obviously get rated as ahost for the vehicles and then
you get to rate the renters.
So what did you rate this guy?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I gave him a four.
He gave him a four out of five.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
And why did you give him a four?
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Because actually I was impressed that he didn't
leave, because I thought thatwas going to be the case, that
he was just going to abandon thevehicle and then he would have
got a zero or like a one.
But no, he was nice the entiretime.
He picked up my phone calls, hecalled me back, you know, he
kind of kept me updated andwhatsoever, but at least he
(16:28):
didn't leave, yeah.
And so I gave him a four and Iwrote in the comment took care
of the car, because it came backin one piece, right yeah, it
did and clean, it was clean andyeah relatively clean and I said
one small hiccup but wouldinvite him to to rent again
would you?
I, yeah, I would, honestly, Iwould like I actually liked the
guy.
I thought he was great.
(16:48):
I thought he was great.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I would just tell him don't get in that situation
again.
But the thing is is that heprobably would get himself in
that situation just because nochance, I would run to him again
.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
But you and I are different, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
I give people chances .
Speaker 2 (17:02):
You do people usually learn from their mistakes.
Well so I guess he did, becausehe didn't take it to zero, he
just took it down to six rightor seven.
It got close.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
You know who's to say that.
He was gonna, you know, bringit down to zero again.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
But you know it got close and so yeah, I would I
would run to him again how manyrentals do you think we've had
in total between the twovehicles?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
oh, I can tell you.
Oh, okay, yeah, I actually havethat stat.
The truck has completed ninetrips.
We've got like five pending,right now like upcoming okay and
the model y for the.
Over the course of the year itdid 38 trips 38.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Oh wow, okay, so like 47 trips in total and we've
only had one real horror story.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Yeah, really, and that wasn't really a horror
story.
A horror story would be.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
Well, we thought it was going to be.
I thought it was going to beabandoned an hour away from our
house with no charge, but itwasn't.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
That would have turned it into a horror story.
Yeah, but the funny thing aboutthis guy was he's like so,
jason, so who's paying for thetow truck?
And I'm like, well, you kind ofgot yourself in this situation,
don't you think it's likesomething you should cover?
He's like, yeah, man, but likeit, it ran out of battery and I
was like from from your doingright, it was like he wanted to
(18:26):
pin it on me.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
it's like cover yeah, it was my problem yeah and
you're like well, could you havegotten out of that situation
without the tow truck?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
he's like no yeah, yeah, yeah, so anyways, yeah,
just just a funny debacle there,but yeah, so that's tarot.
So far, so good.
I mean, look, it's the samething as renting apartments,
it's, you know, you're not.
It's not always going to gowell.
Majority of time is going to gowell, but you just need to bake
in some things of likesomebody's probably going to do
(18:55):
something stupid yeah, I mean.
What would have been unfortunateis if you had another rental
lined up for that day and yeah,that would have sucked then you
have to cancel that and yeah,yeah, yeah, yeahceling on
somebody Changing somebody'splans would have been a double
whammy there.
Yeah, but overall, yeah, no,pretty good, pretty good.
Somebody's probably going toask well, how does the insurance
(19:16):
work if somebody gets in a caraccident?
So you can choose yourdifferent deductible amounts.
I actually choose the 90%,which is I take 90% of the
revenue.
T, which is I take 90% of therevenue.
Turo takes 10% as their fee andthat actually covers the
insurance part of it too.
So my deductible is like 2,500bucks.
So if you want that lower, youcan go to like a zero deductible
(19:37):
and you just agree to give uplike 50 or 40% of the revenue.
Now maybe I would do that with alower value car.
I wouldn't do that with a carthat I'm renting for 300 bucks a
day.
That's a lot of money, you know.
So I'm okay with taking ahigher risk on it.
You know, is it going to biteme in the butt?
(19:57):
I don't know, who knows, figurethat out.
If it does bite me in the butt,then you just adjust it, move
forward.
It's kind of the trial anderror thing.
Some people have a differentrisk tolerance than others.
But anyways.
Yep, so that's how that works,all right.
Well, if you found any value inthe show, you have more
(20:19):
questions about Turo.
I'm not a total expert, butI've done it a few times.
Happy to help, all right, wewill catch you on the next one.
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