Inés de Saralegui, co-founder and director of Respiro Car Sharing, shared a Coffee Break with entrepreneurs

Last Thursday, February 27, a Coffee Break with entrepreneurs took place at the Vivero de Empresas in Vicálvaro. On this occasion, the guest was Inés de Saralegui, co-founder and director of Respiro Car Sharing.

Respiro is a collaborative consumption solution applied to the use of the car, which allows several users to share the same vehicle at different times of the day, by renting it by the hour.

Collaborative Consumption is here to stay

Inés de Saralegui believes that "Collaborative Consumption is a trend that is here to stay." And he adds that "a car is parked the 97% of his life, it makes no sense to fill the streets with them" and that "innovative sustainable mobility solutions are necessary, such as Car Sharing".

Inés explains that “we are the missing link in public transport, everyone needs a car at some point, but not everyone needs one every day”.

Car Sharing as a way of saving

"People don't calculate what it costs to own a car based on how it is going to be used," says Inés, explaining that "many clients of our service end up selling their vehicle."

Inés details that “if you do less than 10,000 or 12,000 km a year, it is not worth owning a car. Most drivers don't."

Inés also explains that “on average, a Respiro Car Sharing car is shared between 50 people. The average savings of each Respiro member is €5,000 per year, these savings go back into the city's economy».

Some keys to the success of Respiro Car Sharing

"Respiro is an example of disruptive technology," explains Inés de Saralegui. Asked about the investment in its beginnings, Inés says that "in the beginning, the most important rounds for us were the ones we did with family and friends."

When asked “What is the best thing you have done?”, Inés is clear: “Surround ourselves with good and capable people, not with great brains. Over time we have been making them partners.

Inés de Saralegui considers that "public-private collaboration with municipal authorities for services such as ours is essential."

After talking for a while longer with the attendees, Inés de Saralegui wrote, as is customary in the Madrid Emprende Coffee Breaks, a sentence in a window of the Vicálvaro Vivero de Empresas: «To undertake is to learn, much encouragement and much success».