Summer is coming. We incorporated on the French side of Saint Martin first, because you have to start somewhere. The ease of establishing the business is not the ease one finds in the USA, but if you are born here, and you have a bank account then things are less difficult. Getting a bank account is what we had to do first since my partner and I had neither worked or lived there for over 15 years.
Now we have a physical address, accounts and licenses after going through the bureaucracy with a plan for a service not seen in the Caribbean. Car sharing is worldwide, but not yet tropically known. The smartphone era is global, but most use them for sharing photos and checking responses after sharing the photos and videos. The phone in an average Saint Martiner's hand has more computer power than what got men to the moon. It is capable of performing bank transactions, broadcasting video live, organizing your agenda, or monitoring your home away from home. It IS a computer in your pocket and making calls is the smallest of its abilities.
We hope to show inhabitants our service works with something they're already familiar. Apps make internet actions easy. Correction: They make life's actions easy...or so they should.
Back to electric car sharing in Saint Martin. We have 7 cars on the island, registered and ready to drive. On the French side, we are finalizing the payment processing agreements. It appears not many businesses on thew island handle online payments. Also, the status of being French, but not in France makes for confusion with some of the providers.
The great thing about the internet is someone does what you want somewhere. They usually have competition too. Borders are an inconvenience when it comes to any online business. But it is a hurdle a bit of research can overcome. On the other side of the island, we are patiently waiting for the approval of our business application. We would not want to drive across the open border to find out that we cannot share our cars with everyone on the Friendly Island. We have to make sure what is seamless online is also so IRL (in real life).
We look forward to chatting with the banks on the Dutch side for expanding our transportation alternative to owning a car. I think everyone knows a good idea when they see one. The tipping point has arrived for electric vehicles. The world finally sees it. Car sharing is also the future of multimodal transportation in any urban environment. Driverless cars are within 10 years of dominating the market of moving people where there are no trains or trollies. We hope to be around for all of it throughout the Caribbean.