How can more than a billion people travel to and fro, around and through some of the world’s most populous and fastest growing cities—without creating epic traffic jams, tapping imported oil or exacerbating noxious air pollution? That’s the challenge facing China as it develops a transportation system for its increasingly urban, car-buying population. Continue reading
Category Archives: Transportation
China’s Move Toward Greener Transit
Posted in Auto, Policy, Transportation
Tagged China, Electric cars, High-Speed Rail, National Geographic, Smart Growth, Urban Planning
Rev Up Your Motors, Electric Cars Zip Into View
The earliest plug-in car buyers will contend with high price tags, limited charging infrastructure, uncertainty about long-term durability and resale values, and insecurity about hitting the road without being able to refuel at just any convenient gas station.
But automakers have devised different strategies for tackling these challenges and, they hope, for winning over thousands of customers in the years ahead. For an overview of the strengths, weaknesses and cool facts about 11 electric and plug-in hybrid models from car companies large and small, check out this photo-rich piece I wrote for National Geographic Daily News.
Posted in Auto, Transportation
Tagged Chevy Volt, Electric cars, General Motors, National Geographic, Toyota
Smarter Parking: New Ways to Feed the Meter
After circling block upon block in search of a rare vacant parking space, or scrounging for quarters at a blinking meter, many drivers may arrive at a common thought: There’s got to be a better way of doing this. UCLA professor Donald Shoup, an authority on parking management and author of “The High Cost of Free Parking,” agrees. “We have neglected parking as a policy issue for far too long,” he says. Continue reading
Posted in Policy, Transportation, Urban Planning
Tagged AOL Autos, Livable Streets, Trend
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
Posted in Auto, Collaborative Consumption, Transportation
Tagged Analysis, BMW, Car Sharing, Daimler, Earth2Tech, Mobility on Demand, RelayRides, Reuters, Spride Share, Trend, WhipCar, Zipcar
Light Is the Bright IDEA for Transport
Bright Automotive, which recently scored the first investment from General Motors’ new venture capital arm, aims to help steer commercial fleets toward more efficient options by decoupling size from efficiency. In other words, it lets customers have their cake (sip less fuel) and eat it too (carry more stuff). To accomplish this, Bright is developing a plug-in hybrid van called the IDEA with advanced materials that could shave thousands of pounds off the weight of conventional counterparts. I’ve written a profile of Bright for National Geographic News, covering the company’s accomplishments so far and challenges ahead as it pursues government funds on the road to commercialization.
GM’s $100M Venture Fund on the Hunt for Car Sharing Play
When it comes to car sharing, General Motors’ new venture capital arm wants to get some skin in the game, GM Ventures President Jon Lauckner told me this week in San Jose, Calif. Asked to elaborate on what type of car sharing play might attract GM’s investment, he commented that Zipcar and GoLoco are two “interesting models.” You can read the full scoop in this piece I wrote for Earth2Tech.
Image courtesy of Flickr user Andrew Currie
Posted in Auto, Finance, Transportation
Tagged Breaking News, Car Sharing, General Motors, GoLoco, Venture Capital, Zipcar
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
Posted in Auto, Collaborative Consumption, Transportation
Tagged Acquisitions, Car Sharing, Earth2Tech, Streetcar, Zipcar
New and Next Big Things in Ridesharing
New rideshare services match commuters using Facebook, text messaging, GPS, and iPhone 3G. What’s next? Devices that provide not only real-time information (about traffic and approaching buses, for example), but also anticipate a commuter’s travel patterns and suggest personalized transportation alternatives. That’s the vision, at least, of transit scholars at the University of South Florida. I spoke with John Zimmer, founder of rideshare startup Zimride, as well as a pair of urban transportation researchers from USF a for this post on Sierra magazine’s Green Life looking at the growing number of ventures hoping to reinvent carpooling. The article also appeared (through syndication) on The Huffington Post.
Posted in Transportation
Tagged Green Life, Huffington Post, Ridesharing, Trend, Zimride
