With Toyota to share the car will be a no – brainer- Tom’s Hardware

Toyota has decided to enter the increasingly crowded world of car-sharing and has done so with a potential game-changer, Smart Key Box, a box that does not need special treatment or installation, and that allows everyone to transform their car into a shared car, open and put in motion, via Bluetooth and a smartphone app.

The idea is simple but at the same time brilliant. You will only have to install the Smart Key Box in your car without the need for intervention by specialists. The potential customer will will receive a code via a smartphone app. Then, when this will be near to the device, via Bluetooth and a simple mechanism of handshake will be able to open the drive and put it in motion, without the need to use keys. The box of the Toyota will set then a period of validity of the code, according to the bookings made, after which the handshake will not take place and the user will therefore have more access to the car.

The first test should be performed in the area of San Francisco by a small startup named Getaround, which takes care of car sharing peer-to-peer, has just been awarded a grant of ten million dollars from a fund controlled by Toyota itself. At the time, may participate in the pilot project, only the owners of the new Toyota Prius or any car Lexus. Toyota has also announced future plans to create a new financial product that allows users to buy a car by paying it through the proceeds earned with his share.

Toyota is not the only company in the industry to focus on car sharing, but at the moment is the one with the most innovative solution. Mercedes owns Car2Go, General Motors has just launched its service, Ford has launched in London GoDrive and BMW is experimenting with in Seattle ReachNow, while Tesla has announced that soon will open its network of car-sharing.

All of these solutions, however, involve the constitution of a fleet of cars ad-hoc, areas the pickup and delivery, and staff management. Toyota Smart Key Box instead, promises to turn anyone into an entrepreneur, and any car in a car shared.

we do Not know which of the two models will prevail in the future or if perhaps it will emerge still others, however, it begins to be clear that the automobile as well you are starting on sunset boulevard in favour of a vision in which the purpose, you move, and not the half to be the focus.

of the rest Of the next decade, the advent of the car is completely stand-alone promises to make sharing the main mode of use of the automobile, thus helping to contain the problems of traffic and parking, as we explained already in a previous article.