Category Archives: Collaborative Consumption

Review Roundup: Car-Sharing Services

It’s never been easier to be carless in the city. Not because of a boom in public transit, but because of car-sharing services, which make owning a vehicle akin to paying for a nanny instead of hiring the occasional babysitter.

So begins my review of four car-sharing services for Wired Magazine (October 2011). I tested Zipcar and the non-profit City CarShare, plus two P2P services, RelayRides and Getaround, on the streets of San Francisco. I checked out their insurance policies, mobile apps, application processes, websites, prices, availability, and more. For the full rundown and scores, head on over to Wired.

RelayRides Gets a Lift from G.M.’s OnStar

General Motors and RelayRides, a peer-to-peer car-sharing service that allows private car owners to rent their vehicles, announced a partnership and possible investment this week. Under an exclusive two-year agreement, RelayRides users will be able to unlock G.M. vehicles that are registered with the car-sharing service and subscribed to OnStar, the automaker’s communication service, with a mobile phone app. In this post for The New York Times Wheels blog, I explain the deal and why some people see the growing amount of computing power in cars as a “natural fit” for car sharing. Read the full story here.

Bike-Share Schemes Shift Into High Gear

Around the world, cycle-hire operators are rolling out bicycles that were tucked away for the cold and rainy months. Hundreds of new bikes and docking stations will join existing fleets, while many more cities, from Kailua to Tel Aviv to the Big Apple are joining the bike-sharing wave for the first time. Continue reading

Car Sharing Startups Bask in Zipcar’s I.P.O. Glow

Zipcar, the car-sharing provider, raised $174.3 million in an initial public offering Thursday morning, marking a first for a segment once dominated by nonprofits and local community organizations. In this piece for The New York Times Wheels blog, I report how the strong showing could be a boon for new companies aiming to make money through alternatives to vehicle ownership. Continue reading

BMW Rolls Toward Zipcar’s Turf With Hourly Rentals

BMW's Mini Cooper is among the most frequently requested models in Zipcar's fleet.

A new pilot program from BMW will let customers rent any current BMW model by the hour from the company’s event center in Munich, Germany. In this piece for GigaOM’s Earth2Tech blog, I explore how “BMW on Demand” fits into much larger trends of innovation around providing mobility as a service — and growing competition for the current car sharing heavyweight, Zipcar. Continue reading

How Zipcar Can Scale Car Sharing on the Cheap

Zipcar isn’t the oldest car sharing network, but it is the world’s largest and it aims to eventually span across the globe — partly by acquiring competitors. The grand vision behind Zipcar’s global expansion is for a subscriber who lives near the company’s Cambridge, Mass. headquarters, for example, to rent a car in a Barcelona or London Zipcar fleet just as easily as in their home network. Continue reading