All it would take is one person smoking in their shared car to ruin it for the rest of us.

Once a vehicle (or a home) has been smoked in, you can never completely get the smell out.

It makes me nauseous to sit in that smell for any length of time.

The shared-everything vision of the future ignores the extent to which people's cars serve as extensions of their home and storage. Having a bunch of stuff always available when you need it, and knowing that nobody else will stink up the place, means that personally owned cars will remain popular for a very long time.

For around two years I’m constantly using shared cars via apps. I’ve had almost zero issues. If the car is dirty or smells you can review it and one would assume repeat offenders get booted off.

Hotels have solved that problem by simply prohibiting smoking in most rooms, and if you get caught doing it anyway, they’ll charge you a high fee to sanitise the room.

Im all for having a more robust ecosystem of shared vehicles. But it does make me think of the rough physical state of shared scooters and bikes in my neighborhood...