More than 3.5 million people have booked a vehicle through Turo in the past year, according to a company filing. Now Turo is facing uncomfortable attention as a perhaps coincidental link between the two incidents. — Photo by appshunter.io on Unsplash
SAN FRANCISCO: For nearly 15 years, Turo, the car rental app investigators say was used in the deadly attack in New Orleans and the vehicle explosion at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, quietly grew as an alternative to traditional rental services like Hertz and Enterprise.
The company was founded as RelayRides in 2010, and rebranded to Turo in 2015. More than 3.5 million people have booked a vehicle through Turo in the past year, according to a company filing. As of September, the app had 350,000 vehicle listings in more than 16,000 cities.
Now Turo, which last year was considering an initial public offering on Wall Street, is facing uncomfortable attention as a perhaps coincidental link between the two incidents.
The app functions similarly to Airbnb, where “hosts” can put their cars on the Turo marketplace to be rented by users.
For some users, the app is a cheaper alternative to rental fleet companies found at airports, with many vehicles available for under US$50 (RM224) a day. Others use the app to rent novelty cars for higher prices, like classic automobiles, high-end sports cars or Tesla Cybertrucks, such as the one used in the explosion in Las Vegas.
Much like traditional rental services, Turo customers are required to upload their driver’s license, home address and payment information to create an account.
Hosts on Turo range from people who rent out their personal vehicle to make a side income to users who list over a dozen vehicles and rent them on Turo as a full-time job. Turo provides its hosts with third-party liability insurance up to US$750,000 (RM3.37mil). Drivers, who are responsible for any damage to the car while it is being rented, are offered coverage by Turo.
In a statement on Jan 1, the company said it was “heartbroken by the violence perpetrated in New Orleans and Las Vegas”, and was actively working with law enforcement for both incidents.
“These individuals in question had valid driver’s licenses, clean background checks, and were honorably discharged from the US military,” Turo said. “They could have boarded any plane, checked into a hotel, or rented a car or truck from a traditional vehicle rental chain.”
Investigators have so far found no definitive connection between the New Orleans attack and the explosion of the Tesla in Las Vegas, but law officials said they continued to look for links between the incidents.
Turo was founded in Boston by Shelby Clark, who served as CEO, and it later relocated to San Francisco, where it is based. Its initial investors were Google Ventures, August Capital and Shasta Ventures, and the company has so far raised US$500mil (RM2.24bil) in funding, according to company statements.
Clark left the company in 2013 to pursue venture capital investments and practice wellness and meditation in Costa Rica, according to his social media accounts. The current CEO is Andre Haddad, a former executive at eBay.
Turo had US$880mil (RM3.95bil) in revenue in 2023 and reported a US$14.7mil (RM66.10mil) profit. For the first nine months of 2024, it brought in US$722mil (RM3.24bil) with a US$19mil (RM85.44mil) profit, according to regulatory filings.
Turo has for years been rumoured to go public, and filed paperwork for an IPO in 2022. In September, it partnered with Uber to let its customers rent vehicles from the Uber app. – ©2025 The New York Times Company
