Uber Teams With Fair To Boost Vehicle Access For Drivers

To assist those who don’t have a car but want to drive for Uber, the ridesharing company is going national with a program that lowers the barriers to accessing a vehicle.

The company has been in a partnership with Fair, a flexible car-leasing startup based in California, since January, Bloomberg reported.

Fair’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer Scott Painter said, according to the report, “Uber wants to really find a way to lower the barrier or the hurdle to getting into a car. This is designed specifically to attract drivers who may not even have enough credit to get a traditional car loan of any kind.”

Uber agreed to sell its subprime lending unit to Fair in January of last year.

That move, in turn, provided the company with access to a set of drivers comprising approximately half of the more than 30,000 active users. Fair’s model is less risky, as the company doesn’t require drivers to make a big financial commitment with a years-long lease, and is more flexible when it comes to letting drivers return their cars when they want.

Fair isn’t in the business of lending money to consumers to buy cars, per a PYMNTS report last year.

The company instead purchases a vehicle that a consumer might want and then enters into an agreement in which the driver will pay for that car on a month-to-month basis. The single monthly payment bundles all the costs of car ownership, such as maintenance, insurance and repair as well as wear and tear (both normal and excess).

Along with that one monthly payment, there is also a non-refundable “start payment,” which is tantamount to the first and last month’s payment. The cars are all pre-owned, and the company doesn’t have any inventory beyond what they have under contract with drivers.