My smart car rental was a breeze - until I got trapped in the woods
Kari Paul in San Francisco Tue 18 Feb 2020
I rented a car through the Gig app. But when I lost cellphone service, I found myself stuck by a remote highway
On Saturday morning, I used an app on my phone to unlock a vehicle from Gig, a car sharing startup, and set off for a Valentine's Day weekend trip to northern California with my partner.
By late Sunday afternoon, we were sitting on the side of a remote highway, a software issue on our smart car rendering it unusable. It was getting dark, we had no way of getting home, and I was contem- plating the limits of the sharing economy and the ultimate costs of convenience.