Page 2 - Fortune-November 01, 2018

A F ORK IN

THE R O AD

FO R AV I S

Self-driving cars and ride-hailing
services could make the car-rental
industry obsolete—or create a
once-in-a-generation opportunity.
Here’s what Avis Budget is doing
to avoid a wrong turn.
BY PHIL WAHBA

ARE THERE ANY EXPERIENCES MORE JOYLESS THAN
renting a car at the airport? Cranky after a
long flight, you clamber onto a crowded shut-
tle bus. There you join the line at the counter,
waiting your turn to endure a hard sell for
insurance policies and a GPS device. (Pro
tip: You already have a GPS built into your
phone.) Then it’s off to the lot to hunt down
your car in a sea of identical sedans. It says
something particularly unflattering about this
industry that, in a society in which technology
makes most routines faster, the average wait
time to pick up a rental car got two minutes
longer between 2013 and 2017, according to
consumer insights firm J.D. Power.
If you’d like to see this whole business
model disappear in a cloud of smoke—well,
so would a lot of people in the rental-car busi-
ness. Before long, they hope, you’ll be able to
skip the counter-kiosk complex entirely. Once
you get to the lot, you’ll use your smartphone
to activate your car’s headlights so you can
easily find it. Your phone will unlock it and

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FO R T U N E. CO M // N O V. 1 . 1 8 PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTOPHER LANE