Unlock the potential the freedom the value of your parked vehicle
Stop Renting.
Start Swapping.
Do you own a vehicle? Stop paying for rentals. Forever.
Exchange your vehicle using points instead of money!
Verify. Exchange. Drive
Wheelu lets users exchange vehicles by either swapping directly with others or using Wheelis, a point-based system. Simply list your vehicle, find a match, and enjoy worry-free travel with no rental fees or hidden costs.
All exchanges with Wheelu will be covered by a world-class insurance, driver and car verification and security deposit.
01. Create an account
Create your account, get verified, list your vehicles and earn your first platform points.
02. Exchange & Earn
Find your vehicle, propose an exchange with insurance coverage and verification.
03. Drive & Review
Enjoy your trip and review your experience to share it with others!
Benefits
Key Features
No money involved
Earn and spend points for every vehicle exchange.
Insurance Options
Get protected during your exchange
Vehicle Selection
Access a wide selection of vehicles worldwide
Positive Impact
Reduce your carbon footprint with each swap
Trusted Community
Enjoy a network of verified-only members
Cost Effective
Save on fees and taxes and avoid legal implications.
Benefits
Key Features
Flexible Point System
Earn and spend points for every vehicle exchange.
Insurance Options
Get protected during your exchange
Vehicle Selection
Access a wide selection of vehicles worldwide
Positive Impact
Reduce your carbon footprint with each swap
Trusted Community
Enjoy a network of verified-only members
Cost Effective
Save on fees and taxes and avoid legal implications.
Our Approach to Sustainability
Let's help the planet 💚
At Wheelu, sustainability is at the core of everything we do. Instead of contributing to the carbon footprint through the production of new vehicles, we encourage the efficient use of those already on the road by exchanging them with others in the community. There are more than 30 millions cars used for rental purposes growing each year.
This shared mobility approach helps to minimize waste, lower emissions, and promote responsible travel.
Savings in relation to a traditional rental
Savings while exchange
From a sustainability standpoint, using a vehicle exchange platform like Wheelu offers significant environmental benefits alongside the financial savings. Here's how:
1. Reducing Carbon Emissions
Traditional rental cars are often new vehicles added to the fleet, which increases the overall number of cars on the road, contributing to carbon emissions from manufacturing, transportation, and operation. With Wheelu, by sharing vehicles that are already part of the community, the demand for new vehicle production is reduced, directly cutting down on emissions linked to manufacturing and logistics. Every avoided vehicle purchase saves approximately 6 to 9 tons of CO2, which is significant in reducing the transportation sector's environmental footprint.
2. No Hidden Costs, Lower Carbon Footprint
Rental companies often require trips to central rental hubs, such as airports, and incur hidden fees like fuel charges or taxes. This leads to inefficient travel, with extra miles driven to pick up or return vehicles, increasing emissions. Wheelu eliminates these inefficiencies by allowing direct exchanges within local communities, reducing unnecessary trips and promoting more efficient use of existing vehicles.
3. Fuel Efficiency and Electric Vehicle Promotion
Users of Wheelu can exchange more fuel-efficient or electric vehicles, which further reduces carbon emissions. A traditional rental vehicle may not prioritize fuel efficiency, while on a platform like Wheelu, users are incentivized to offer vehicles that are greener, lowering fuel consumption and overall CO2 output. An electric vehicle (EV), for instance, can reduce emissions by half or more compared to a traditional gasoline-powered car, especially in reciprocal exchanges that emphasize sustainability.
4. Minimizing the Resource Demand for Long-Term Rentals
Long-term rentals can be highly unsustainable due to the continuous resource demand they create (fuel, maintenance, and production of new cars). Traditional rentals over months can cost between $1,500 and $3,000 per month, generating more emissions over the long term. With Wheelu, users exchange vehicles for extended periods without contributing to the production of additional vehicles, thus reducing resource use and supporting a more circular economy where existing vehicles are fully utilized.
5. Sustainable Travel Practices
By making vehicle exchanges easier and more cost-effective, Wheelu supports travelers in choosing sustainable travel practices. Traditional travel options often lead to higher carbon footprints due to flights or rental cars. With Wheelu, travelers are encouraged to explore alternative means like car-sharing, reducing their overall environmental impact while traveling.
In summary, using Wheelu doesn’t just save users up to 100% of traditional rental fees; it also contributes to a more sustainable, eco-friendly travel ecosystem by reducing carbon emissions, encouraging fuel efficiency, and promoting the full utilization of existing vehicles.
Million cars are underutilized globally
Savings while exchange
Today, a significant number of vehicles are severely underutilized. On average, cars are parked about 95% of the time, with most vehicles sitting idle in garages, driveways, or parking lots. This is a staggering statistic when you consider the vast number of vehicles on the road. In 2020, there were over 1.4 billion vehicles globally, meaning a huge portion of the world’s vehicles are not being used efficiently.
In cities like the U.S., for example, the average car is driven only around 11,500 miles per year, equating to only a few hours of use per day. This inefficiency highlights the environmental and economic waste associated with vehicle ownership, as most of the resources—such as fuel, insurance, and maintenance—are spent on vehicles that are largely unused. Moreover, every car that sits idle contributes to traffic congestion, parking scarcity, and environmental impacts such as higher CO2 emissions due to vehicle production.
By tapping into these underutilized resources through platforms like Wheelu, the potential for reducing both environmental footprint and costs is enormous. Sharing vehicles reduces the demand for new vehicles, cuts down on manufacturing emissions, and ensures that fewer vehicles are produced to meet the same level of transportation needs. In short, vehicle sharing and swapping platforms could drastically increase the utilization of vehicles, benefiting both users and the planet.
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Avoiding Rental Fees: Traditional car rentals can range from $50 to $150 per day, depending on the vehicle. With a vehicle exchange platform, users typically avoid these fees by exchanging vehicles using a point system, which could lead to savings of up to 100% of rental fees.
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No Hidden Fees: Rental companies often add costs such as insurance, airport surcharges, taxes, and fuel charges. These hidden fees can add 20% to 40% on top of the rental price. Wheelu’s exchange system avoids these extra charges, resulting in significant savings.
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Fuel Savings: By allowing users to exchange more fuel-efficient vehicles or electric vehicles, Wheelu can help reduce fuel costs, which can average around $20-$50 per day for regular rentals.
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Long-term Savings: For longer-term travel, renting a car can become prohibitively expensive, with rentals costing $1,500 to $3,000 per month. Vehicle exchanges, on the other hand, avoid this cost entirely, particularly in reciprocal exchanges.
In summary, users could save anywhere from 50% to 100% of the total cost of renting, depending on the rental market, vehicle type, and exchange duration.
Average reduction of CO2 on each ride
Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emitions
The potential reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per vehicle exchange ride will depend on several factors, including the type of vehicle, fuel efficiency, and distance traveled. However, sharing vehicles instead of relying on new rentals can have a significant environmental impact by:
- Reducing the demand for new vehicles: Manufacturing a single new car produces an average of 6 to 9 tons of CO2. By sharing existing vehicles, you avoid this upfront environmental cost.
- Improving vehicle utilization: When vehicles are shared rather than sitting unused, fewer vehicles are needed overall, leading to fewer emissions from manufacturing and disposal.
- Optimizing fuel efficiency: If users exchange more fuel-efficient vehicles or even electric vehicles, CO2 emissions can drop considerably.
On average, the CO2 emissions per mile for a typical passenger vehicle are about 404 grams. By sharing instead of creating new travel demand (e.g., a new rental), you effectively reduce emissions by avoiding the production and transport of a new rental car. A conservative estimate for CO2 savings per exchange could range from 10% to 20% reduction per ride, depending on factors such as vehicle type and distance.
Million cars are used for rental purposes
Savings while exchange
Every year, millions of cars are put to use by rental car companies around the world, particularly in major travel hubs and tourist-heavy regions. In the U.S. alone, there are approximately 2.3 million rental cars in service, a number that continues to rise with growing demand for temporary vehicle access. While convenient for travelers, the environmental cost of such a massive fleet is significant.
The life cycle of rental cars contributes heavily to carbon emissions at multiple stages—starting with manufacturing, followed by transportation to rental hubs, and even the maintenance required to keep them in service. Manufacturing a single car can emit 6 to 9 tons of CO2, and considering that rental companies need a constant flow of new vehicles to replace aging models, this creates an enormous carbon footprint. Further, most rental cars are driven only intermittently, meaning many vehicles sit idle in parking lots or depots, contributing nothing to society but still consuming resources.
Beyond the direct emissions associated with producing rental vehicles, there’s also the fuel consumption factor. Many rental companies still rely on traditional combustion-engine vehicles, which produce significant CO2 emissions while in use. According to research, the average passenger vehicle emits about 404 grams of CO2 per mile driven. With millions of rental cars on the road, this can add up to a substantial amount of emissions over the course of just one year.
Wheelu seeks to disrupt this unsustainable cycle by offering an alternative to traditional car rentals. Rather than relying on new vehicles produced for the sole purpose of being rented, Wheelu promotes the efficient sharing and exchange of existing vehicles within a trusted community. This approach reduces the demand for new car production and the emissions tied to the rental industry, which can help significantly in lowering the overall carbon footprint of the transportation sector.
Through peer-to-peer vehicle exchanges, Wheelu taps into the 95% of cars that sit idle for the majority of their lifetime. Rather than letting these vehicles go underutilized, Wheelu allows them to be shared by travelers, reducing the need for people to rent from large corporations that rely on environmentally taxing production cycles. By promoting the use of existing resources, Wheelu directly addresses the environmental inefficiencies created by traditional car rental systems.
In addition to minimizing the environmental burden of producing new cars, Wheelu also empowers users to choose more fuel-efficient or electric vehicles when exchanging, further reducing emissions. Many traditional rental companies offer limited options for electric vehicles, but by connecting people with a variety of vehicles from individual owners, Wheelu enables more environmentally conscious choices to be made.
A shift towards platforms like Wheelu could have a profound environmental impact. For instance, if just 10% of trips traditionally taken using rental cars were made through vehicle exchanges, this could result in a reduction of millions of tons of CO2 emissions annually. Over time, this model could help create a more sustainable travel ecosystem where people rely on sharing instead of ownership, minimizing the environmental toll of personal transportation.
Wheelu's commitment to sustainability goes beyond just reducing emissions. By helping to create a community that values the efficient use of existing resources, it promotes a circular economy where fewer resources are extracted from the planet. As the world increasingly faces the consequences of climate change, innovative solutions like Wheelu's vehicle exchange platform can help reduce transportation's contribution to global emissions while offering travelers a cost-effective and eco-friendly way to explore new destinations.
In summary, the environmental impact of the rental car industry is considerable, with emissions coming from the production, maintenance, and fuel consumption of millions of vehicles. Platforms like Wheelu offer a powerful alternative by enabling the exchange of vehicles that are already part of the global car fleet, reducing the demand for new vehicle production and making travel more sustainable. As the platform grows, it has the potential to significantly decrease global emissions, contributing to a greener and more sustainable future.
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We will launch soon. In the meanwhile join our waiting list, stay updated and get exclusive early access.
