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My work forces me to travel on a regular basis. And because most car service drivers drive like madmen, I always rent a car for my trips between the airport and my clients. Unfortunately, my experience with car services has been far from great. In fact, it’s probably my second worst customer experience after air travel. That was until I discovered [Silvercar](https://www.silvercar.com/#/).

Because I closely follow tech news, I learned about Silvercar when the startup launched in early 2013, but I never had a chance to try their service until last month and a trip to California. Like many tech startups these days, Silvercar’s goal is to disrupt powerful incumbents, but here the targets are car rental companies and specifically the ones located across US airports.

In short, Silvercar provides a far better experience for airport car rentals, mainly by adding technology to its cars and using mobile apps as a way to simplify and improve the whole process. But how does it work exactly? Well, it is rather straightforward. In fact it’s so simple, that you wonder why no one thought about it before.

– Download the app
– Create an account and enter a bunch of information about yourself
– Choose your start and end rental date
– Call or text Silvercar once you arrive at the airport
– Silvercar picks you up at your terminal of arrival
– Validate the rental agreement through your smartphone

And boom, just like that you’re on your way.

This is half of the greatness of Silvercar. The other part is the price and the car. They only have one price ($59/day) and one car (fully-loaded silver Audi A4s). That’s it.

I’ve used the service twice so far and I had an amazing experience each time. I’ve also convinced all of my colleagues to use Silvercar, and they now all swear by it. I could sing praises of the service all day long but next time you have the chance, give it a try. You won’t regret it.

I won’t dwell into the full story of Silvercar, but if you’re interested I suggest you read this detailed article on [Buzzfeed](http://www.buzzfeed.com/mariahsummers/meet-silvercar-the-startup-trying-to-shake-up-airport-car-re). What I want to talk about is the car. Silvercar’s Audi A4s are really nice rides. Again they are fully-loaded, fuel efficient and quite comfortable for extended trips. Interestingly enough, a new A4 drives like a BMW 3 series F30, which drives like a Volkswagen Jetta, which probably drives like a Toyota Camry. I actually don’t know that because I never tested a Camry. They are soul-sucking cars that will make you question your life on this planet and arouse strong feelings of suicide. My point is that all these automobiles are the same and I don’t honestly understand how Audi and BMW differentiate themselves. BMW is probably doing a (slightly) better job than Audi thanks to their halo products (i.e. M cars). But if you’re an enthusiast and want to drive a decent BMW, you have to have a 35 engine and the M Sport Package and that’s not a cheap car. I just hope that a MINI doesn’t end up feeling like any other compact car on the market and for which you have drop $38K to have something exciting to drive.