What Is WaiveCar?
Is WaiveCar still kicking? Nope, but its owners have started a new project.
Written by Andrew Kidd
Reviewed by Kathleen Flear
Table of Contents
- WaiveCar was an all-electric car-sharing service
- ‘Shark Tank’ appearance
- But did it pay off for WaiveCar?
- What's next?
- Jerry can help with insurance savings
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What happened to WaiveCar? As quickly as the car-sharing
startup
appeared, it seems to have disappeared just as suddenly without much of a trace.But maybe it's not completely gone, since the original founders are still out there with new ideas. Let's look into the history of this all-electric
car-sharing service
, its history and its successful appearance on the TV show Shark Tank before its eventual decline.WaiveCar was an all-electric car-sharing service
Founded in 2014 and launching two years later, WaiveCar was an electric car-sharing service that offered free rides for up to two hours. It then charged drivers $5.99 per hour afterward.
As
SEOAves
reports, WaiveCar offered the lowest car-sharing
rates in the industry at the time, which were subsidized in part by ads displayed on digital billboards atop its fleet of electric cars. The company asserted that it didn't profit from its clients, but rather the mobile billboards it essentially turned its vehicles into.In its first month since its launch in 2016, WaiveCar had more than 3,000 customers in Santa Monica. It also inked a year-long agreement with Hyundai to operate a fleet of the automaker's vehicles. The company expanded to Los Angeles in 2017 with another 180 vehicles
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‘Shark Tank’ appearance
WaiveCar was featured on a November 2017 episode of
Shark Tank
, where founders Zoli Honig and Isaac Deutsch asked for a $500,000 investment in exchange for a 2% ownership stake of the company. Shark Kevin O'Leary bit, offering a $500,000 three-year loan at 12% interest for 2.25% equity plus an 80% discount on unsold ad space.
But did it pay off for WaiveCar?
Not really. WaiveCar seems to have taken a new direction since its appearance on Shark Tank.
Social media for Waive has been inactive since late 2019 and Waive's owners seem to be switching gears. After Cal State LA discontinued its WaiveCar program due to an unspecified insurance issue, the company as we knew it seemed to have gone inactive.
What's next?
WaiveCar founders Honig and Deutsch are working on a new project called
REEF
, which offers a short-term car rental service via a fleet of small three-wheeled electric vehicles operating out of parking lots in Santa Monica, Los Angeles and Miami. They're a little pricey at $0.49 per minute (or an introductory rate of $16.00 per hour) and are limited to a range of 30 miles from REEF lots.
It doesn't seem as though WaiveCar is still around, given that the original URL for the company's website now redirects to its founders' newer REEF venture. The WaiveCar app is no longer available on app stores and the company itself seems to be no longer operating as it did before its "hiatus" in 2019.
Jerry can help with insurance savings
Car-sharing has its perks, including its affordability for people who need an
electric
car for an afternoon, but don't want to pay the associated ownership costs like insurance. Until a reliable car-sharing service for EVs hits your neighborhood, consider saving on your car insurance with Jerry. Jerry
customers save an average of over $800 a year to insure their vehicle.If you’re deterred by the work of gathering quotes and you’d rather leave it to someone else, the Jerry app sources quotes from 55+ insurance companies, like Nationwide, Allstate, Safeco, Progressive and Travelers.
Jerry even helps cancel your old policy once you’ve made your pick. So don’t pay more for the same coverage, make sure you’re getting the fairest price possible.
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