Elie Youssef fits the description of Ekar’s average user of the pay-per-minute car service, perfectly.
In his mid-30s, tech savvy, and used to using other sharing economy apps, he is among a demographic who experts say may one day no longer own their own vehicles, thanks to the inexorable rise of car sharing services.
Ekar and competitor Udrive both won contracts with Dubai’s Road and Transport Authority to provide a pay per minute car hire service and initially launched the service with 100 cars each early last year.
Ekar is in the midst of adding another 100 cars to its fleet, which are more high-end than its original Nissan Tiidas.
“For our second tranche of cars we are launching some BMW Minis and some Infinitis. So that’s going to be really exciting to see how the market reacts to that,” said Petter Moen, Ekar’s general manager.
Udrive, which claims to have a market share of around 70 per cent, now has 400. Both have plans to expand in a big way this year.
Ekar aims to have 500 to 600 cars on the road by Ramadan, while Udrive is targeting 1,000 by the end of this year or start of 2019.
And both companies are struggling to keep pace with the demand.
“Right now we have about a 20 per cent increase month-on-month. Our biggest challenge now is to get enough cars on the road,” said Mr Moen.
“A luxury problem, but nevertheless a problem, is we have 100 new customers signing up every day. If they open up the app and they don’t see enough cars on there they say okay fine, I just downloaded the app. Let me try again in a couple of days,” he said.
That is just about acceptable the first time, he said, but they really struggle to keep hold of the potential customers if they cannot find a car the second time, said Mr Moen.
Udrive, for its part — which has had more than 150,000 trips since January 2017 and more than 100,000 hours usage to date — is experiencing growth of 20 to 30 per cent month on month.
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Read more:
Udrive pay-per-minute car rentals comes to Abu Dhabi
How the sharing economy has inspired a new type of car hire company
Reinventing renting: Testing out short-term car-rental apps ekar and Udrive
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“Since the last couple of months, the end of last year, it’s been picking up like crazy,” said Hasib Khan, chief executive and founder.
He said the reason for this is that they are now reaching a tipping point where more people are learning about the service. And as they do, they tell others.
“If you have 25,000 people who know about you, and they each tell five people, you have 125,000 people speaking about you. So this is for me the major thing.
“It’s like a snowball which runs down the hill and gets bigger and bigger and bigger.”
Mr Khan said he thinks car sharing services like his own are the future and has been approached by many who have either sold their cars or are thinking about it.
Mr Youseef — who first used Ekar when his own car was in the garage for a service — has already considered it.
“I think I would if there were more options,” said Mr Youssef, 35, who is British-Lebanese and has lived in the UAE for 13 years.
“As they increase their fleet and locations in the city it would be more feasible to consider giving it up.”
Mr Moen also sees a big future for car sharing.
“We just had a meeting with one of our partners, Volkswagen, where we just discussed this,” he said.
The model has proved very successful in the US and Europe in cities with high density, he said.
“In the short term in Dubai we see a very bright future, but where we see the market going in five years or 10 years is more towards self-driving cars.
“So car sharing 2.0, if you want to call it that. The next step where you share cars but you don’t drive them yourselves.”
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
PROFILE
Name: Enhance Fitness
Year started: 2018
Based: UAE
Employees: 200
Amount raised: $3m
Investors: Global Ventures and angel investors
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Ziina users can donate to relief efforts in Beirut
Ziina users will be able to use the app to help relief efforts in Beirut, which has been left reeling after an August blast caused an estimated $15 billion in damage and left thousands homeless. Ziina has partnered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to raise money for the Lebanese capital, co-founder Faisal Toukan says. “As of October 1, the UNHCR has the first certified badge on Ziina and is automatically part of user's top friends' list during this campaign. Users can now donate any amount to the Beirut relief with two clicks. The money raised will go towards rebuilding houses for the families that were impacted by the explosion.”
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
THE%20SPECS
%3Cp%3EBattery%3A%2060kW%20lithium-ion%20phosphate%3Cbr%3EPower%3A%20Up%20to%20201bhp%3Cbr%3E0%20to%20100kph%3A%207.3%20seconds%3Cbr%3ERange%3A%20418km%3Cbr%3EPrice%3A%20From%20Dh149%2C900%3Cbr%3EAvailable%3A%20Now%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
