HoppyGo test: Rent a car for a trip

I decided to rent a car through the HoppyGo platform, which takes the form of a website or mobile application. The whole process is simple, straightforward and fast. In addition, it relieves the owner of the vehicle of unnecessary paperwork – you do not need a single piece of paper to borrow.

HoppyGo registration

Registration consists of verification of e-mail and tel. numbers using verification codes. Then you enter common personal data such as name, surname, address, birth number and so on.

Then the ID card is uploaded, which you do with the camera of the device. I really liked it, as I was away from home at the time and needed to book a car as soon as possible. So I took a picture of the front of it, then the back of it, and finally I had to take a selfie with the ID card in the picture – so that my face and also the ID card could be seen. The same procedure followed with a driver’s license.

You will receive an account verification and confirmation message within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, you can add your credit card or car if you want to rent one.

Vehicle selection

At the beginning, of course, is the choice of your desired vehicle. Then you enter information about when and by when you want to rent a vehicle and from where (probably it will be the nearest city in your area).

Based on the car rental data you enter, the application will find suitable vehicles in your area. Compare them, choose one or more suitable candidates and request their reservation without obligation. HoppyGo recommends making at least two reservations in advance, as one of the vehicles may fall out of the system at some time for some unknown reason. Reservations can be canceled free of charge within 72 hours of taking over the vehicle.

I booked a Škoda Enyaq iV electric car for our joint company teambuilding, which took place in the Mojmírovce mansion (location near Nitra). It was borrowed by the company Auto Gábriel, sro from Košice, which is also the official dealer of Škoda vehicles (but also Audi and Volkswagen).

Reservation and payment

Enyaq would cost 100 € per day, for short-term rent (up to two days). However, since I rented it for four days, I got a smaller discount – it cost € 80 a day. If I rented it for a longer period of time, it could cost me cheaper on average for one day. The extra mileage rate must also be taken into account – according to the application rules, you are entitled to 200 km per day (excluding fuel costs).

Then you will get acquainted with the conditions of insurance – whether the owner of the vehicle has taken out accident insurance or not. In addition, you can additionally insure your vehicle against minor accidents – spilling coffee in the interior, loss of keys and the like for € 4 a day from Uniqa. It is professionally called Civil Eligibility Insurance for damage. If you have a discount code, you can apply it here.

Then you just wait for the vehicle owner to confirm the order.

Mine confirmed it to me in a few hours. Only then did the payment go off my card. If you book two vehicles at the same time and both bookings are confirmed, then you can choose the one that suits you better. The second is automatically canceled.

Taking over the vehicle

The vehicle will be picked up at the agreed date and place. The default is at the car address. But the owner and the applicant can easily agree in another place if it suits them. In my case, it was directly at the Škoda store in Košice. However, the download took place a little later than I planned in the app. But the owner of the vehicle contacted me in advance via the HoppyGo application and prepared me for this short delay.

We both initiated the takeover of the vehicle from the application environment. Officially, you only need to perform three steps – take a picture of the vehicle before taking over, write down the condition of the tank (or battery) and the number of kilometers traveled. Unofficially, of course, we met, then we took a picture of the vehicle and recorded all the data, and then the owner showed me the vehicle – controls, charging connector and the like.

More than 10 photos are required to take a picture of the vehicle. Eight photos of the interior – front, right and left front, sides, back and right and left back. Then there are about three more photos of the interior, where one must be a photo of the dashboard (probably to verify the number of kilometers). The same procedure awaits the owner of the vehicle.

Then just enter the condition of the tank as a percentage (observe it when handing over!) And the number and mileage of the vehicle at the time of acceptance by number. Again, the owner of the vehicle will do the same.

So the trip to Slovakia can begin. 🙂

Handing over the vehicle

Uploading is basically the same as downloading. It should just be shorter, as you are not familiar with the vehicle or the owner. That is, if everything goes smoothly, which was not our case.

I initiated the handover of the vehicle in the same way as I started the takeover process. The procedure was practically identical – this was followed by a photo of the vehicle, recording the condition of the tank (in my case the battery) and the number of kilometers. Subsequently, I had to wait for the data to be confirmed by the owner and a possible repetition of the procedure, but something went wrong here.

The application did not allow the vehicle owner to perform this procedure. So we contacted the people responsible for HoppyGo, who did it for us. We all know that mobile applications sometimes strike.

Billing

This took place within 24 hours of the vehicle being taken over by the owner. As I covered more kilometers on the vehicle than agreed (895 in 4 days), I was withdrawn a few tens of euros per extra kilometer (at a rate of 0.3 € per km). Under standard conditions, I would be refunded the deposit for the vehicle (in my case € 330), but as there was minor damage (I dried the electron – who would have said that the SUV will have a thin tire profile), the deposit was not returned to me.

The costs for the whole trip were as follows:

• 4 days at a price of 80 € per day – 256 €
• Uniqa insurance – 16 €
• HoppyGo commission – 64 €
• Refundable deposit – 330 €

The loan itself would therefore be standard came out at € 336.

But I had other costs for the trip:

• Kilometers beyond (95 km) – € 28.50
• Highway sign – 10 €
• Charging fees (usually 150 kWh with a charger) – € 70.96
• Deposit for damage to electrons – 300 €

Total: € 775.46

It is said that the damaged electron will cost more than just € 330 to repair, so maybe I’ll put some of those hundreds of euros aside to pay extra. Otherwise, the trip was great, the car too and without the little damage, so I’m a few hundred euros better at it.

However, my experience may be different from yours and you probably won’t rent one of the most expensive cars HoppyGo has to offer. Thus, even such damage would not cost you so much money. HoppyGo’s offer is very wide. As for the models, so are the prices. I could go on a trip by more than half cheaper car, but also twice as expensive.

You can also rent a car and make money on it

Did you know that most cars are just parked up to 95% of the time? I did not invent this number, I refer to the Fortune portal. Instead, you could rent and earn them while the car would otherwise be parked. This is how the future might look like, which HoppyGo wants to help.

If you want to contribute to your vehicle, prepare a technical card, photos of the car, mileage and about 10 minutes, which you devote to the whole process.

However, I did not go through this process, so I can not tell you more about it. However, the result will be a detailed profile of the vehicle with technical details (engine, transmission, drive, etc.), but also data on equipment (heated steering wheel, independent air conditioning, ambient backlight and others).

Summary: It was worth it

The HoppyGo application simplifies almost everything compared to a classic car rental company. You can register calmly from the comfort of your home, while at the car rental you would wait for the car rental employee to enter the data into the computer and verify it. You would then fill in the necessary details and sign multi-page loan agreements and go home with a pile of papers and still without a car. In this case, you can equip everything from the comfort of the application in a few minutes and then just come on the day of renting a car. I take this as the biggest plus app.

I consider it a minus a bit that the owner had a problem with the application when taking over the vehicle and that we had to deal with the occurrence of an insurance event with the telephone support of the application. Ms. she called the owner over the phone to send an additional photo of the damaged part by e-mail and arranged for the backup to be downloaded. Ideally, without this minor inconvenience, however, we would be able to close the loan in a few minutes, directly through HoppyGo.

The application is definitely worth trying out for car owners as well. Currently, there are only 12 cars available for rent in my area (Košice), so the competition is still not great. On the other hand, whoever comes first will get good ratings and his car is all the more attractive. HoppyGo has only been in Slovakia since May this year, so not everyone knows this platform yet.

So the demand for your car may not be so great yet. But they don’t have to worry about it being a short-term startup. This platform was created by the ŠKODA AUTO DigiLab innovation center, and they have been operating in the Czech Republic without any problems for four years.

Thanks to HoppyGo for trying out the service.