It is possible to have an all-digital all-electric car rental solution, Aidan McClean,UFODRIVE

UFODRIVE was created by its CEO Aidan McClean, due to the frustration he had encountered when using different car rental services. I spoke with Aidan about his career, and why UFODRIVE is attempting to make the car rental experience as comfortable as possible.

We began by discussing his background, and how he has frequented between Dublin, London, and Luxembourg.

“I’m actually a former accountant that found it too exciting so moved to IT. I have a masters in technology and spent the past 25 years leading big digital transformation programs in financial services. I specialise in delivering great UX, leaning out, and delivering efficient corporate operations. I have been a CEO,  and worked
about 17 years in Dublin and London with the past eight years in Luxembourg”.

On his background, Aidan believes that his past hasn’t affected what he is doing presently, as he has now involved in projects which reflect his experiences and what he has a lot of interest in.

“I left financial services corporate life behind. But I believe passionately in time-saving efficient customer service through technology no matter what the business. This is why after 100’s of terrible car rental experiences I decided to try to solve it. On top of that, we simply have to accelerate the solving of our polluted air and climate crisis so combining electric cars with a digital-only rental solution was the choice for me. Tough making such a shift but I would never look back”.

All-digital all-electric car rental solutions are possible Aidan McClean, UFODRIVE

In terms of the last year, Aidan spoke about his last year, and how the last 12 months have focused on getting UFODRIVE as much attention as possible:

We have grown very fast and deliberately so to eight countries and 17 locations in just two years. We are very proud of the customer feedback so far. To single out the big wins it would be securing prime locations in major international airports and city centres. Airports are notoriously difficult to open new businesses in, especially car rental.

We have secured some of the biggest in Europe and the US due to our electric and green focus. Every airport we have approached with UFODRIVE has so far said yes except Dublin. We also launched our new eMobility platform as a SaaS to help others make the shift to electric”.

In terms of what he would’ve changed about the year, Aidan was quick to mention that it was a strange year, due to COVID-19, but reflected on how he in future will try to go with the flow, rather than overthinking.

“Get away from the spreadsheet modelling and get moving faster. Hard to break old habits and I have a tendency to over-analyse … coming-up with all sorts of models for what could happen and how and then they never do or never turn out the way you expect. I never modelled the COVID crisis! If you have a good idea, reasonably robust plan, and relentlessly execute then that’s good enough – stop overthinking!”.

Speaking about the present, Aidan went into detail about UFODRIVE, and the level of expansion they are hoping to achieve.

“I’m leading the expansion of the first all-digital / all-electric car rental solution. We have solved all the usual pain points of car rental with a 100% app-based solution meaning no queuing, rip off extras, not getting the car you wanted, paperwork, etc etc. The service is 100% electric cars in prime city and airport locations. ‘Mass Premium’ cars like the Tesla Model 3.

Our mission is to reinvent the $130bn global market with the future of car rental. Digital and Electric. As fast as possible. We were flying very close to the sun and working on our Series A funding round when the virus hit but thankfully as the business is fully digital we were able to reduce costs instantly and surprisingly the hit on bookings was way less than expected.

Over the past two months, our touch-less direct to car service is booming and we have been near booked out in June and July across Europe. We did slow expansion but thankfully we are now closing funding and plan to resume expansion immediately”.

Moving forward, I discussed with Aidan about how and why he got involved with electric vehicles in the first place.

“I’m a cyclist and had enough about five years ago of breathing in exhaust fumes. I was driving a big diesel myself at the time. I started researching air pollution. You don’t even want to know what you breathe in on an average city street. Then I began going deep into the car industry and the electric world.

There is no going back now. It is simply better in every way and without a doubt about to go exponential. Living in Luxembourg and very familiar with this region the shift to electric is now on turbo mode”.

He spoke of why, to him, it is such an essential idea, as it makes car renting such a seamless experience.

“We not only solve all the hassle of renting a car we also make the transition to electric easy with our technology. We bring the car, the driver, and the charger together to create a hassle-free experience. We have real-time connectivity to over 100,000 medium and fast chargers across Europes, 100% digital connectivity to our fleet, and provide the driver with route planning and guaranteed no range and charging issues.

To-date our customers have driven over 8 million Kilometres without any range or charging issues. 80% of them never drove electric before”.

Before we finished, Aidan spoke to me about UFODRIVE’s influence in Ireland, and how it is growing in stature as the months have gone by.

We opened in Dublin, at St.Stephens Green centre, last year and our customers have already driven all over Ireland, including the usual tourist routes. We don’t need as many chargers as you may think in Ireland. Around 20 stations on prime routes with fast superchargers is enough.

Why? Because our country in perfect for electric. We don’t do big journeys like on the contentment where a 1,000km trip isn’t unusual. In planning a trip from Dublin to say the ring of Kerry, typically a customer will stay overnight in Killarney and charge at their hotel before doing the ring. We see this on our tracking and never had a range issue. We are planning to open in Galway, Cork, and possibly Belfast”.

For more information contact https://www.ufodrive.com/en/

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