An online car rental service is under scrutiny after it was used in two incidents Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The platform, Turo, is known as an \u201cAirbnb of cars,\u201d as it allows individual car owners to rent out their vehicles. Vehicle owners, known as \u201chosts,\u201d can post cars to Turo\u2019s website, where people can then rent them, with payments made through the platform.<\/p>\n
Turo acknowledged it was used in both incidents in an online statement posted Wednesday. <\/p>\n
\u2018It is with a heavy heart that we confirm that this morning\u2019s horrific attack in New Orleans and this afternoon\u2019s Tesla Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas both involved vehicles rented on Turo,\u2019 the company said. \u2018Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.\u2019<\/p>\n
It said it did not believe the individuals who may have rented the autos involved in the incidents had criminal backgrounds \u2018that would have identified them as a security threat,\u2019 and that it was not aware of any information that indicates the two incidents were related.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Turo <\/span><\/p>\n Turo said in a statement Thursday afternoon that the vehicles\u2019 renters had valid driver\u2019s licenses and clean background checks and that they were honorably discharged from the U.S. military.<\/p>\n \u2018They could have boarded any plane, checked into a hotel, or rented a car or truck from a traditional vehicle rental chain,\u2019 Turo said. \u2018We do not believe these two individuals would have been flagged by anyone \u2014 including Big Rental or law enforcement.\u2019<\/p>\n Investigators had said earlier that Turo was used to rent a pickup truck that plowed through New Orleans revelers early Wednesday and procure a Tesla Cybertruck that was filled with explosives and burst into flames outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n Authorities have preliminarily said the service\u2019s use in both incidents is a coincidence.\u00a0On Thursday afternoon, authorities said there was not a definitive link between the two incidents. \u00a0<\/p>\n Turo, previously known as RelayRides, was created in 2009. It came of age during the broader boom in peer-to-peer startups, like Airbnb and Uber, that sought to disrupt many traditional markets including rentals of houses, automobiles and even swimming pools.<\/p>\n But with that disruption came concerns about security. For years, peer-to-peer platforms like Turo have faced criticisms after cars have been stolen to be used for nefarious purposes. The companies have previously responded that such incidents are exceedingly rare. However, over an approximately four-month period between October 2019 and February 2020, NBC News found some 49 reports of motor vehicle thefts in Washington, D.C., involved cars rented from Turo or its rival, Getaround, representing 6% of all incidents during the period.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n As of Sept. 30, Turo had about 150,000 active hosts worldwide, with 350,000 active vehicle listings and 3.5 million active guests participating on its marketplace, according to a company filing.<\/p>\n Turo\u2019s website tells hosts that they are \u201csafe\u201d in trusting the platform because Turo \u201cscreen(s) each guest,\u201d so hosts can be \u201cconfident when they hand over\u201d their keys.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n An online car rental service is under scrutiny after it was used in two incidents Wednesday. The platform, Turo, is known as an \u201cAirbnb of cars,\u201d as it allows individual car owners to rent out their vehicles. Vehicle owners, known as \u201chosts,\u201d can post cars to Turo\u2019s website, where people can then rent them, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}