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Comment by School-Cotton | Hacker News Reader

> when you're renting a car that can only be unlocked through a phone app

Off-topic, but this is an incredibly horrible idea. Can you name and shame the company so I make sure I never rent from them?

I tend to be a forgetful and generally clumsy person, which means I neglect to charge my phone a lot. So I would be stranded in this case?

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Maven by GM is like this. It's a little bit clumsy at times[1], but it does the job for hourly rentals (the primary purpose of the app). The cars have Android/iOS chargers in them. As far as I can tell, you would be in quite a bit of trouble if you ran out of battery.

[1] If the internet connection is weak, it will attempt to update trip information before letting you unlock the car. You're better off turning on airplane mode.

Most of the car share companies operate this way near me. It's not "exclusively via app", but most people rely on the app and NFC to unlock/start and lock/end their trips for convenience.

That said ... you are in a car that can charge your phone too.

In my case the issue wasn't battery, it was the phone locking up and no "reset combination" for it would reboot it.

https://www.maven.com/us/en/ - unlike Zipcar, they don't have a physical card they send you to unlock your car, you can only use your phone.

The only one I know of is Silvercar. They only rent Audi A4s and Q5s.

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