Drugs and Chuhai While Driving: The Dark Reality Behind the End of Peer-to-Peer Car Sharing

Service ends after less than 10 years

Anyca, a car sharing service between individuals, was completely terminated at the end of last year. The service attracted a lot of attention as a service that allowed anyone to rent a car from a wide variety of options at low prices, and the number of members reached 910,000, but the service was terminated after less than 10 years. Automotive journalist Kumiko Kato takes a closer look at the malicious users behind the scenes.

Launched in September 2015 as a pioneer in peer-to-peer car sharing, Anyca completely ended its service on December 31, 2024.

There are two main types of car-sharing services that have rapidly spread in recent years: rental-car type services like Times Car Share (with cars marked with the “wa” registration), and peer-to-peer car-sharing services where individuals rent out their privately owned vehicles. Anyca was the latter, providing a matching service for peer-to-peer car-sharing. Unlike rental-car type services, which involve commercial car rentals and thus use “wa” registration plates, peer-to-peer car-sharing operates under the concept of “shared use of privately owned cars.” This is why users could choose from a wider variety of vehicles, including vintage cars and sports cars, which rental services typically don’t offer. However, it is also true that the service was plagued with incidents and accidents.

In this article, the author reflects on the actual malicious users and troubling incidents that occurred with Anyca based on previous research.

White powder found inside a car

Tomoki Kobayashi (pseudonym), who lives in the Kansai region, had been using Anyca for peer-to-peer car-sharing since around 2020. At the end of 2023, while cleaning his car, he noticed a small transparent bag wedged between the dashboard and the windshield. When he pulled it out, the bag contained a white powdery substance.

“I thought, ‘No way?’ I had seen things like this in photos or dramas, but of course, I had never actually seen drugs before. It looked very much like it, but I wasn’t sure what to do. So, I asked my fellow Anyca owner friends, and they told me I should report it to the police. I took it to the nearest police station, still unsure. After an analysis, it was confirmed to be methamphetamine, which shocked me all over again.”

At the police station, he was asked to hold the small bag of drugs, point at it, and take photos. They also took his fingerprints and several full-body photos of him, ultimately detaining him for more than three hours. “The place where I found it was in a spot where it could have been easily noticed from the outside. If the police had found it, my questioning would have been a lot more complicated.”

The police later reportedly made a request to Anyca for user disclosure. Since it was unclear how long the bag had been in the car, they were gathering information on the drivers who had rented the car in recent months to identify the culprit.