This year, Yandex.Drive’s lease contracts will expire, forcing the operator to return cars to their owners, Kommersant reports. However, the tightness of the car market makes it almost impossible to buy new equipment. In addition, during the crisis, manufacturers stopped issuing quotas for car-sharing companies and leasing companies increased the rate from 8% to 20%.
Due to expiring lease contracts, Yandex.Drive is forced to reduce the number of cars. The service could lose up to 35% of its fleet by 2022. Major is the company’s main leasing partner, but during a crisis, the company refuses to renew contracts in favor of further car resale or offers unsuitable terms for Yandex.
Finding new cars in a crisis is not easy. Russian brands, such as Lada, are not very suitable for car sharing, cars are used intensively here and with such exhausting loads they had to be written off before the lease contract expired.
Another problem that car-sharing companies face is the lack of spare parts, which has already caused their prices to rise by at least 20%.
Given the increase in the cost of cars, parts, lease rates and the costs of development personnel, travel costs will inevitably rise, and for this reason, the popularity of carsharing will remain in question.
PS Yandex.Drive’s press service has not confirmed that the service could lose up to 35% of its fleet this year. “Early this year, Yandex Drive launched a fleet renewal program, but the situation in the car market has really changed in recent months. Returning cars to a lease partner is a gradual and lengthy process, we are also in constant dialogue with partners. At the same time, the massive replenishment of the fleet with new cars would now lead to a significant price increase.”