The vehicles used in the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans and an explosion in Las Vegas were both rented through the same car-sharing app, authorities said, a connection between two incidents that have been otherwise described as unrelated.
The vehicles — a Ford F-150 pickup truck that drove through a crowd of New Year’s revelers, killing at least 14 people, and a Tesla Cybertruck that erupted in flames outside a Donald Trump-owned hotel — had been rented by their respective drivers through Turo, a company that bills itself as the world’s largest car-sharing marketplace.
The company operates in a similar way to Airbnb, in that users rent cars directly from their owners. Renters can search for a specific car make and model from local owners, who set their own daily rates, and in many cases the renter can pick up a vehicle without any physical contact with the owner, according to the company’s website.
Anyone seeking to rent a car through Turo must have a valid driver’s license. The company may also check users’ credit score or auto insurance score and may conduct a criminal background check, the app’s website states.
The company was launched in 2010 and late last year reported having more than 350,000 vehicles actively available for rent and 3.5 million active users in more than 16,000 cities.