"The BFA mentoring and training sessions complement our experience"
Interview with Iván Luarca, CEO of Eccocar, participant in the first Acceleration Phase of the Business Factory Auto initiative (BFA).
What specifically does your project consist of?
It is a web application or platform, where there are owners who advertise their cars and drivers who rent them. Eccocar users have a wide variety of cars and vans on demand, that is, near where they are and for as long as they need it. It is a real and economic alternative for those who wish to live without a car in property.
For Car Sharing to proliferate, access to cars has to be very quick and simple. For this reason, Eccocar has developed Ecconnect, a fleet management system, which allows the user to have the car they are going to rent located, to open it and to start it using only throw the mobile. This system is even more comfortable than having the car in property, since you avoid having to keep it, recharge gas or pay insurance. Just worry about using the car that suits you.
What has the Business Factory Auto (BFA) initiative contributed to the development of Eccocar?
The BFA initiative has given us very important support to be able to develop the launch of Eccocar, since it was the definitive push for us to pull for the project full time.
It has also been very important the funding and the work space they have provided us, as well as the mentoring and training sessions, which complement our experience more focused on large multinationals.
All this, allows us to face the beginning of Eccocar more prepared and with a much greater speed than we were carrying and, therefore, with much more probability of success.
What is the current employment of Eccocar? Already generating employment in Galicia?
We are currently two employees, but before the Program ends, we expect the four founding partners to be full-time employees. Then we have a large ecosystem of self-employed, suppliers and a pair of computer scientists, students in internships, which we hope will be able to join our staff in a few months.
What do you think your business project brings to the Galician Automotive Sector? How can it help to promote the competitiveness of the Sector?
The automotive sector is undergoing major changes, precisely because of the digitization process that is gradually affecting all sectors. One of the consequences of digitization in the automotive is precisely the use of car-sharing, which potentially increases the number of people per vehicle and the percentage of use of the vehicle respectively. This leads us to potentially have many fewer vehicles in circulation, which is very good for society, but that makes the car industry have to shift from manufacturer to service provider.
What future expectations do you have regarding your participation in the first edition of the Business Factory Auto (BFA)?
Our goal is really to have a positive impact on cities, which on all streets there are smart cars shared and accessible to Eccocar users. We will start working more in Madrid and Vigo, as well as in more tourist areas, but we are here to make Eccocar a global platform.
www.eccocar.com
