Why own a car when you can borrow your neighbor's? No, we’re not advocating grand theft auto. We're talking about rent-by-the-hour personal car sharing.

Six months after the Oregon Legislature fine-tuned auto insurance laws to allow peer-to-peer car sharing in the state, the California startup

has announced that it’s ready to launch in the Portland area.

With the help of a $1.7 million federal grant, the company said Tuesday that it is ready to debut its personal car-sharing service in February, after a testing period on the

campus that starts Jan. 1.

Getaround has tens of thousands of members who share vehicles in San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area, including Mountain View, Palo Alto and Berkeley, as well as limited areas within San Diego, said co-founder and CEO Sam Zaid.

Zaid said the company has long wanted to enter the Portland market. “It’s a very progressive and green city, where there’s already very, very strong demand for Zipcar," he said. "And there are institutions like PSU that have been very much in the forefront alternative transportation options.”

Last summer, Gov. John Kitzhaber

without being held liable for accidents or jeopardizing their auto coverage.

The peer-to-peer car-sharing business model is based on the reality that most personal vehicles are parked about 90 percent of the time and an increasing number of urbanites are abandoning car ownership. Owning a car costs an average of $8,000 a year to insure, gas up and keep running, according to the AAA.

Car owners can make money while they’re at work or otherwise not behind the wheel by renting it out to the Joneses.

With rent-by-the-hour companies such as

reluctant to expand beyond Portland's urban core, Zaid said his service will allow more suburban commuters to get a taste of car sharing. Getaround has been running a "beta" of its service in the Portland area, using a handful of families for several months.

Starting today, Portland area car owners and commuters can start signing up for Getaround with the

service at Getaround.com on the Getaround.com website.

“This marks the first federal grant that has ever been awarded for peer-to-peer car sharing,” Zaid said.

In California, Getaround, RelayRides, and other personal car-sharing companies have launched online networks that are a fusion of Zipcar, eBay and Facebook.

Logging onto San Francisco-based Getaround, members can choose from more than 2,000 personal vehicles in the Bay area. They run the gamut, from an old Honda Civic for $5 an hour ($30 a day) to an electric Tesla Roadster going for $50 an hour (with a two-hour minimum).

Sure, some of the cars aren't exactly kept in pristine condition. "But if you're getting a car for $3 an hour," said Getaround co-founder Jessica Scorpio in June, "I'm sure you're not going to be too picky."

Getaround members use social media to connect. They rank one another with star ratings. The company screens driving records and offers an iPhone car kit that allows renters to unlock a vehicle without a key swap. Meanwhile, its insurance covers accidents or damages during rental periods.

The $1.7 million grant from the

’s “Value Pricing Pilot Program” to help Getaround start in Portland will be administered by the Portland Bureau of Transportation and the Oregon Department of Transportation.

Dan Anderson, a spokesman for the Portland bureau, said the money will be used to help pay for the installation of rental technology needed in member’s personal cars, marketing and for research into the dynamics and impacts of peer-to-peer car sharing by

and Education Consortium at PSU.