With a car subscription the vehicle is parked at the door, with car sharing in the car park. Nobody from the provider is present. Still, the condition at pick-up and return has to be recorded in a way both sides can rely on.
Classic handovers have one advantage: two people stand at the vehicle, look at it together and sign. With car subscriptions, doorstep delivery and car sharing, this situation is missing. The customer takes over alone, and the provider only sees the vehicle again weeks later. That is exactly when the discussion about scratches, rims and the interior begins. This article shows how the documentation nevertheless becomes reliable without staff on site.
A guided photo sequence with visible progress takes a few minutes and saves the discussion at every return about whether damage was already there.
On delivery, the delivery driver records the condition; on return, a different employee or the customer does. Weeks or months often lie in between. Without complete and comparable photos at both points in time, any settlement can be challenged, in either direction.
Required photos: all sides, the four corners, roof, rims, interior, boot. A guided sequence makes sure nothing is missing.
Odometer and fuel gauge: as a photo of the instrument cluster, not as a typed number.
For electric vehicles: state of charge and the charging cable supplied.
Known spots: pre-existing damage is marked and photographed. Whatever is entered here can no longer be attributed to the customer later.
Three safeguards make recording by a single person reliable.
If the customer records alone, recording must only be possible directly from the camera. A photo from last week or of a different vehicle would devalue the entire record. Time, place and device are bound when the picture is taken.
Recording must be completed within a short period after the handover, for example within an hour of delivery or before the journey starts with car sharing. After that the condition counts as accepted. This is fair for both sides because it closes the gap in which damage could occur unnoticed.
If the second person is missing, the procedure replaces the joint confirmation: the customer confirms the condition, the record is sealed and delivered to the provider immediately. Both have the same evidence record with the same fingerprint. The provider can object within the agreed period; after that the condition is fixed for both.
On return, the same photo sequence is recorded again. Pre-existing damage from the pick-up is already entered and marked. New spots are added. The comparison of the two sealed records shows what was added during the period of use, with photo, time and assignment to the vehicle. The settlement is then based on documented differences, not on memory.
Documentation that serves only the provider is perceived by customers as distrust. Documentation that treats both sides equally protects the customer from claims for damage caused by others and the provider from damage nobody reported. What matters is that the customer receives their evidence record immediately and can verify it independently, without an account with the provider.
Then the delivery service's documentation or the last recorded condition applies. It makes sense to make the recording a condition for releasing the vehicle, for example by unlocking the vehicle only after the record has been completed.
For evening deliveries the time window should extend to the next morning so that the photos can be taken in daylight. The period is stated in the contract.
Yes. The process is the same: check-out and check-in via the QR code on the vehicle, guided photo sequence, sealed record for each use.
Deadlines, rights of objection and the settlement of damage belong in the contract. This article describes the documentation, not the contract design.