Carsharing Year in Review - 2011

2011 has been a landmark year for carsharing in the US and worldwide. Here's my annual review of developments in carsharing for 2011.

Before getting into specific developments, I'd like to make two general observations:

Are we seeing a demographic tipping point? — This was the year when the mainstream marketers admitted that many in Gen Y ("the Millennials") weren't thinking about cars the same way their parents were - they'd rather have their iPhone than a car. Car registrations and VMT are down; significantly fewer teenagers waiting before getting their driver's licenses; and especially an explosion of bicycle use in cities (even those without bike-friendly reputations).

I've always thought this 2009 headline in the Globe and Mail (Toronto) newspaper captured this shift in thinking about cars very nicely - "Object of desire or necessary evil?"

Parking is fundamental - Parking is a fundamental but often under appreciated aspect of car use. It wasn't until Donald Shoup layed the cards on the table in his landmark "The High Cost of Free Parking" that most of us realized just how fundamental parking really is. And carsharing operators also know how fundamental parking is to the success of their business. That's why designated parking on public streets has been such a holy grail - convenient access and great marketing exposure. And, as you'll see in several items below, some carsharing companies are slicing the parking issue in new ways - car2go and Zebramobil, as well as RelayRides in San Francisco are opting for floating parking (among other things).

And while on the topic of parking, I can't ignore the really goofy decisions that led to a bidding war for dedicated on-street parking spaces for carsharing companies in Washington DC during 2011.  DC has had a troubled history with carsharing parking, almost from the start in 2001 on-street parking seemed to generate more negative publicity than I've heard in any other city.  I'm sure the companies don't mind paying for such a valuable resource but for something that supposed be good for the city, the "bidding war" seems like a terrible to try to backfill the DDOT budget.  And if press reports are any indication, Zipcar probably didn't handle things as smoothly as they might have.

Now on to the big news of 2011:

Zipcar IPO — it finally happened!  After several years of speculation, Zipcar's new life as a publicly-traded company started in April.  And it got off to rousing start jumping from the $16 asking price to over $30 for a few days and then back to the mid teens, where it's been most of the time since then.  Since then investors have been debating the underlying fundamentals of Zipcar, and trying to understand carsharing, in general.

I think the significance of the IPO is, first and foremost to legitimize carsharing as a valid business model that investors can and should take seriously - a sort of "coming of age" for carsharing and new mobility.  So far profitability seems to be just out of reach for Zipcar, but they seem to be close enough and seem to have a big enough scope that investors continue to be cautiously optimistic. The market has spoken — certainly for North America but to some extent worldwide, as well.

Auto Manufacturers Enter the Carsharing Space — Daimler's car2go service started rolling out new cities at an amazing pace in 2011 — with gasoline-powered Smart cars in Hamburg, Germany, Lyon, France and Vienna, Austria in Europe and Vancouver, BC in North America and all Electric Drive Smart service in San Diego, Calif. and a day later in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Meanwhile BMW launched it's look-alike one-way service in Munich and Berlin, Germany, albeit with larger (but still small) vehicles - 1-series and Minis.

On this side of the Atlantic, GM announced a partnership with RelayRides to integrate the OnStar vehicle telematics system with the peer-to-peer carsharing service - providing a potentially powerful marketing channel and at least partially solving RelayRides technology dilemma.

New Operational Models — As far as re-thinking the internal operations of traditional carsharing, peer-to-peer has been getting most of the attention.  Changing the cost of fleet from a fixed to a variable expense that is paid only when an actual rental occurs, changes the finances of the operator significantly.  It also changes the internal management responsibilities significantly, redefining the fleet managers' job to a marketing job to sign-up and manage vehicle-owning members.  So far signing up car owners does not appear to be a major hurdle.

There are some other interesting experiments that got underway in 2011, as well. In Munich, Germany, Zebramobil has implemented a round-trip service without fixed parking locations.  Vehicles must be left within a several block distance of various zones.  As with car2go, members find a vehicles in each zone via the internet.  In Nice, France, a high profile well-funded all EV carsharing service, Auto Bleue, got underway.

Autolib — In less than a year from contract signing the Bollore Group began the roll out of the service in Novemeber and December.  Opreationally, Auotlib vehicles must be returned to an available Autolib charging bay, unlike car2go's electric fleets in Amsterdam and San Diego, which can be parked anywhere (legal) within the floating parking zone.  Rates are almost identical between Auotlib and car2go.

Autolib is in a category by itself given the major commitment from the City of Paris government and significant private investment (reportedly € 50 million) by Bollore Group itself. As with the Velib public bicycle system, the world is watching at this distinctively French undertaking.   London has already expressed Autolib envy.  But it remains to be seen whether Autolib will serve as a model for the development of EV auto mobility services in other cities.

New service models — While peer-to-peer slices the operational issue of fleet in a new and potentially very profitable way, as far as users are concerned it's still the traditional reservation-based, round trip carsharing service model. In 2011 on-demand, open-end, one-way carsharing really burst on the scene - in both Europe and North America.

I think it's under-appreciated just how completely new on demand, open-end, one-way carsharing services like car2go, Drive Now and Autolib, really are.  On-demand overcomes a significant consumer complaint about traditional carsharing - requiring a reservation and especially having to specify the end time of the trip. A few services in Europe have successfully implemented "open-ended" trips but the challenges of maintaining good utilization with this great amount of flexibility for the user is daunting for any company, and especially a smaller companies.

The implications of these on-demand services on other modes urban transportation are really unknown at this point and I eagerly any shreds of information from modal split research. I expect they will show that a significant number of trips are by "card-carrying" car owners who use the service simply because parking is so easy with these services. But some of these trips may be taken from transit, as well. In the long run, I think it will be another transportation option that leads people away from car ownership.

Smaller carshares doing just fine, thank you — With all the attention being paid to the "big guys" 2011 saw the entry and expansion of a number of smaller carsharing operators, as well.  New operators include Time Car focusing on university campuses in Oklhama and Texas, PATS Carshare in San Jose. And joining the P2P universe Wheelz in  In Australia new entrant Green Carshare took over CharterDrive and the UK continues to see the launch of new car clubs serving much smaller cities and towns than anywhere in the US and many parts of Europe. The industry is now at a place where just keeping track of the companies is a major commitment.

Although college campuses seemed to be where most of the expansion in North American carsharing was taking place, most surprising to me was the move by NYC-based Mint Carsharing moved into Zipcar's home turf in Boston/Cambridge, Mass. taking over a recent start up as their toehold in the marketplace.  I expect there's plenty of room for growth in the Boston market and entering a market where an existing operator has already started the education process simplifies things somewhat.

And long-time carsharing companies, Autoshare, CommunAuto, Modo, I-Go, HourCar, LAX Carshare and City Carshare continue to thrive.  They are joined by host of smaller community-based groups doing great work serving their local areas.

2012 promised to be even more interesting, which I'll sketch out in another post.  If you want to see last year's review, it's here.  Best wishes for the new year

Electrifying Carsharing

(Note to readers: this article has been significantly updated since the original posting.)


With the arrival of highway-capable battery electric vehicles (EVs), a number of carsharing companies are adding them to their fleets.  And it's happening all over the world.  Here are some of operations and concepts that caught my attention.


In the North America many of the operations are adding Nissan Leafs, since it was the first vehicle in wide availability but Mitsubishi iMievs are becoming available.  

• Hertz On Demand — New York City has been busy adding Nissan Leafs and other vehicles to their New York City operation.  Although not widely publicized they offer one-way trips between many of their parking locations.  Although they don't offer city-wide carsharing in other cities, they do offer EVs in San Francisco and Washington DC, as well as London.  Hertz has set out a goal of 1,000 EVs systemwide by the end of 2012.
• CommunAuto — Montreal & Quebec City; has had a long interest in EVs, starting with a proposed Branché project in 2003; possibly the first carsharing service to add battery EVs in North America; will add 50 Nissan Leafs in 2012.
• car2go — San Diego; opened for business on November 18 with Smart ED (electric drive) in one-way service over a large area of downtown (including the airport) and adjacent neighborhoods.
• Getaround — And then there's Getaround P2P carsharing using the Tesla Roadster as their signature vehicle for marketing; now they have 3 privately-owned Teslas enrolled - at $50 per hour ("gas and insurance included").  They've also undertaken to recruit EV owners through a marketing campaign with PlugShare.com
• City Carshare — Announced plans to power half it's fleet with renewable energy; they will do this using Renewable Energy Credits (REC) from 3 Degrees.
• I-Go — Chicago, with great fanfare (deservedly) announced not one but plans to add 11 solar powered charging stations for Mitsubishi iMievs they will adding to their fleet in 2012. Each station, from 350 Green. will cover 4 parking spaces and house 2 I-Go EVs and have room for charging two other EVs. Congratulations IGO!

(Arguably, the first EV carsharing was the Electrovaya Altcar service at the Baltimore Science Center starting in 2009, but it is defunct now.)

France — EVs from major manufacturers have been available in France continuously since the 1980s and France started the first EV carshare in 1999.

  
• Auto Bleue — Nice; the first EV carsharing in France; round-trip service model; a very well funded partnership with Veolia Transport, EDF (the French electric utility) and Transdev; launched in the spring of 2011 with 15 stations 61 vehicles; eventual goal is 70 stations and over 200 vehicles; telematics by Vulog.  "Nice" logos, too, as they say in Nice,)
•  Autolib — Paris; Group Bolloré started it's one-way EV carsharing last week month with the official launch of 250 "Blue Car" vehicles less than a year after signing the contract with the City of Paris.  Pricing is the same as somewhat similar car2go service with Smart EDs in Amsterdam (see below) - 0.29 € per minute.  (I will have a more complete report about Autolib soon.)
• Yelomobile — La Rochelle; rebranded successor to Liselec, the oldest EV carshare (started 1999) operated by the city; with an upgrade from Veolia Transport which integrates the brand (and the member card) with city's Yelo buses and public parking operations.
•  Cité Vu— Antibes (southern France); operated by telematics supplier VuLog allows round trip and one way service between 6 locations.
• Carbox — Toulouse; Carbox is a unique business to business carsharing service, primarily in Paris, but also provides fleet carsharing to Airbus in Toulouse, recently announced they would be adding 15 Citroen C-Zeros (Mitsubishi iMievs) to the 150 vehicles they currently provide the aircraft manufacturer.  

Spain seems to be suddenly very active in EV carsharing, with several demonstration projects:

• CochEle — Sevilla; This is by far the largest operation 6 stations and 16 Peugeot iON (Mitsubishi iMievs) vehicles; rates are 4.95 € per hour or 19.95 € day + 0.29 € per kilometer (I'm a little mystified why they charge so much for "fuel"?)  Cochele has announced a partnership with NH Hotels (major hotel chain in Spain) showing the MIT folding City Cars now being built in Spain (no details)
• E:sharing — Sagunto (just north of Valencia, on the Mediterranean); using Th!nk vehicles; currently with 2 stations
• SareCar - Ataun (northern Spain; tiny village of only 1,500 people); demonstration project with 2 Th!nk vehicles.

Elsewhere in Europe — 

• Move About — offers carsharing with Th!nk EVs in corporate fleet sharing service as well as public carsharing in Oslo, Norway (80 vehicles), Copenhagen, Denmark (launched this month); and Goteborg (Gothenberg) Sweden 5 vehicles in a science park.  Here's a nice video (in English) showing the service.
• GreenWheels — started adding their first Peugeot Ion to their fleet in Amsterdam in July with plans to add 25 EVs total, 7 more in that city, as well as additional vehicles in Utrecht and Rotterdam.
• car2go — Amsterdam; expects to have all 300 Smart Electric Drive models deployed by the end of the year; rates are slightly lower than car2go in other cities (0.29 € per minute; 12.90 € per hour and 39 € per day)

Japan was one of the earliest countries to offer EV carsharing, but took some time out until the current generation of EVs.  Several Japanese auto makers have announced EV carsharing —Nissan (partnering with Mitsububishi in Kyoto) and Toyota (at housing developments in Tokoyo and Nagoya using IQ EV vehicles).  These build on innovative demonstration projects in the 1990s at the manufacturer's corporate campuses -- a project on the Toyota campus using their earlier generation "Crayon" vehicle; and the Honda ICVS project (which currently sponsors the Intellishare program at UC Riverside and once had Honda EVs; as well as the DIRACC one-way carsharing program in Singapore; currently testing in EVs in various commuter projects.

Several independent development concepts have also been announced.  One called the "Green Cross-over Project" would locate EVs at convenience stores and equip them with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capabilities.  Another would use home delivery storage lockers, which already have security features, to make carsharing vehicle keys available to members.


China, which has been very active in developing all sorts of electric mobility - e-bikes, a variety of cars, now a EV carsharing service has launched:

• EVNet — Hangzhou; arguably the first carsharing in China (and joins the largest public system in the world); has 15 vehicles at 4 rental locations near university and office park, both gas and Chery EV (surprisingly their signature Smart car is gasoline Smart not the Chinese knock-off electric Smart). Thanks to Lewis Chen of Invers for this tip and to the Team Red (my consulting firm) man in Shanghai, Dominik Villaret, for update that rates are between $3 - $5 per hour  They have good support from the city government.  Watch this short video.

The future of EV carsharing?

Given the high cost of battery-electric vehicles themselves, plus the cost of charging stations, carsharing and EVs seem like a logical relationship. I have recommended to cities I've worked with, that if they are obtaining EVs and charging stations for their city fleet they consider partnering with a local carshare to make these vehicles available to the general public, while still having access to them for city employee use.  Such application also better utilizes the charging stations.   Since carsharing offers a variety of vehicle types, members can select whether an EV is the right type of vehicle for the type of trip they're planning to make — replacing more trips with vehicles that are the cleanest operating.  The carsharing company should be able to keep an EV in use much more than most private individuals could.   

The installation of solar charging stations overcomes one of the major drawbacks to current battery EVs - instead of recharging from electricity generated from coal-fired power plants, these EVs would be truly renewable transportation.

In the long run some transportation experts believe there will be fleets of shared very light shared EVs, even smaller than Smart cars, in major cities.  These might look like the Renault Twizzy or other light vehicle designs not yet thought of.

Meanwhile in the present, one of the important operational questions all carsharing operators are asking themselves is how often members won't accurately judge the range of their trip and find themselves stranded a long way from home; and what will they do about it.  As of now, there aren't any AAA trucks with quick chargers cruising the streets.  Car2go has got an even more complex situation to manage.  They don't require that vehicles be returned to a charging station so really have to depend that members will look at the fuel level reported on the web or app to decide which vehicle to take.

Where is Zipcar on the on the question of EVs?  They have been cautious (or perhaps "strategic", depending on your point of view). Only 2 years ago Scott Griffith was quoted that Zipcar would "not be going electric anytime soon".  Earlier this year they did announce a partnership with Toyota to place a number of Prius Plug In Hybrids in several Zipcar cities, so they've arguably gone at least partially electric!  For them to implement battery EVs would require a not insignificant upgrade to their system to be able to manage vehicle battery state of charge so that members would get a vehicle with sufficient range to meet their needs.

As EV technology improves (particularly range and recharge times) and vehicle costs come down (or subsidies increase) my guess is Zipcar will be increasingly interested.

CommunAuto, one of the most skillful companies in building partnerships, explains their approach pretty well in these slides from their Nissan Leaf partnership launch event.

If you know of other interesting or exemplary EV carsharing services or concepts.  Please let me know and I'll add them to this post or create new ones.  Thanks.

Carsharing Update for October

I've been traveling the past month (a bicycle trip in Croatia) and there's lots to report while I was gone.  One certainly gets the impression that the carsharing industry is moving into high gear these past few months.  There's lots to report:

RelayRides and General Motors partnership — RelayRides continues with yet another very significant high-level partnership with GM's OnStar division.  This enable the OnStar telematics installed in all new GM vehicle to serve as the "on board computer" enabling them to sign up with RelayRides and immediately start renting their vehicle, nothing to install.  Vehicle owners would still have to subscribe for other OnStar services — emergency help, turn by turn navigation instructions, automatic crash response, stolen vehicle location.

This is the first announcement of what I expect to be other telematics partnerships as cars increasingly become wired.*

Autolib starts its shakedown in Paris — The all-electric, station-based service that's been the source of some controversy in Paris, launched at the beginning of October with 66 vehicles at 33 stations, each with 4 to 6 parking spaces.  The next major ramp up is scheduled for December with 250 of the projected 3,000 stations set to open.

Annual Autolib memberships will cost 144 €, and rates will be 5 € for every half-hour of driving — about the cost of 2 Metro tickets, as one new report observed.  Daily and weekly subscriptions will also be available for 10 and 15 € respectively with higher rates 7€ per 30 min. rates.   

New members can join using the futuristic waiting rooms (?) and will be able present and passport and credit card and activate their membership.  It's not know yet whether visitors from the US, without the European standard issue chip card, will face the same hurdle as those trying to use Velib.

Industrial giant, EV manufacturer, Bolloré, seems to be overcoming early skepticism that their BlueCar vehicle would be ready on time. They are also major investor in the project.

There are already reports that London is interested in developing their own EV carsharing service as well.

If you just can't get enough here's a short video showing the vehicles, stations etc.  

London's Streetcar begins conversion to Zipcar — The Tweets are starting to fly, preparing Streetcar (and Zipcar) members for the upcoming integration.  Rates have been published and FAQs have been written.  The challenge for Zipcar will be to keep their customers happy service as Streetcar's "home town" identity goes away.  And the usual Zipcar bells and whistles will apply — smart phone apps, phone/text reservations and reminders, etc.

Lowering the rates slightly, at least on weekdays, is a good first step. For example a VW Polo's drop from £5.25 to £5.00 per hour and daily rates drop from £52.50 to £49. VW Golf and BMW 1 series also dropped by £0.25 per hour.  Included miles increase from 20 miles per calendar day to 40 miles. Excss miles increased slightly from 23p to 25p.   Only the BMW3 series and van/transporter rates increased a tiny amount from £8.95 to £9.00 per hour.  Annual membership fee of £59.50 stays the same, as do the cost of various insurance options.  Weekend rates are £1 - £2 per hour over weekday rates.  A summary of Zipcar's London rates is here: http://www.zipcar.com/streetcar/welcome/faqs?for=rates-streetcar

A VW Up!

VW Quicar adds car rental — They haven't even launched in Hannover, Germany and VW is making a last-minute addition to the service.  In addition to the 200 Golf BlueMotions in the original announcement, VW will be adding an option for members to rent 70 other vehicles for 10 hours minimum.  Vehicles include the new VW Up! (a sub-sub compact) for ten hours starts at €30 (about $41 when this was written); a Beetle at €40 (about $54) and the Golf cabriolet or Passat for €50 (about $68).  Pricing for the core Quicar carsharing usage is €6 (about $8.25) for the first 30 minutes and €0.20 (about $0.27) for each additional minute.

Like Peugeot Mu project, this looks to me like a car manufacturer is getting into the car rental business.

Closer to home, it's worth noting that the pace of RFPs from US cities to attract carsharing services to their communities continues.  As this is written, Austin, Knoxville and Eugene have RFPs on the street.  Why Austin, you might ask? They have car2go, what more do they want?  If you find out the answer, please post the answer in a comment below.  Thanks.

Suggestion to cities evaluating the proposals - don't get hung up on the membership fees, concentrate on the package the provider offers for attracting new members - time-limited discounts off the normal application cost (to get people to join), free usage for the first trip (to get people to actually use the service).  And don't worry about the second year membership fee.  If members aren't willing to pay $50 - $75 a year for access to the vehicles, they probably aren't using them anyway — in which case, the city isn't getting much benefit from a symbolic member!

Finally, the car2go juggernaut continues with the announcement of plans to offer the "mobility on demand" service in Lyon, France.   Daimler expects the free-parking zone to be about 44 square kilometers.  The car2go operation in Lyon will be another joint-venture with Europcar, similar to the car2go service in Hamburg, Germany.

I'll be watching to see if their Smart cars face the same rebalancing challenge that the public bicycle system in Lyon, Velo' V, faces — residents regularly "clean out" certain stations on top of a hill, taking the bikes downtown and then ride the bus home in the evening rather than pedal back home.  Maybe the gas power to get them back up the hill will avoid this problem.

That's it for this month.

- Dave


------------------------
* I couldn't help but smile at a great opening line in a recent NY Times article on after-market gizmos for cars: "Cars, one of the great mobile devices to begin with, are about to get connected to the Internet like never before. It will change not just how we drive, but the economics of the car business."

Some thoughts about 2009

Welcome to the new year. Following are various thoughts about the past year (sometime dropping back a little further into late 2008). (A shorter version of this article appeared on World Streets.)

Perhaps the most important news of 2009 is to acknowledge that car sharing in North America turned 15 years old this year, thanks to Communauto - a silent leader of the industry. Congratulations Benoit, Marco and everyone there.

There continued to be a strong growth in membership in other carsharing cities.  My guess is that most companies also experienced a growth in revenues and profitability, especially Zipcar (since they haven't added any new major cities or expansion in overall fleet size (compared to where they were at the time of the Flexcar merger). I would be amazed if any carshare didn't experience an increase in vehicle utilization (hours per day) helping out the bottom line.

Campus Carsharing — What expansion that occurred in the carsharing industry was primarily in college and university carsharing services - which can be a very good deal for the carsharing companies since they usually involve a contractual arrangement with guaranteed revenues and handling of some (most) of the fleet management to the university. As has been pointed out elsewhere if you look at the budgets of higher education, they really seem to "get" the issues of transportation and are willing to do spend some money on it. Near the end of 2009, Zipcar was at more than 140 college campuses, claiming a growth of 75 percent in the past 12 months, serving a total student population of 1 million.

Meanwhile cities with revitalizing downtowns seemed to realizing that carsharing offered something of benefit and several RFPs ("request for proposals" - tenders to the rest of the world) hit the street - Miami Beach, Baltimore and Pasadena, to name a few. The usual suspects, Zipcar, Hertz Connect, U-Haul and WeCar responded. Meanwhile, in the LA basin, which once had more than 200 Flexcars, several cities are toward putting out incentives to attract carsharing - Long Beach, Santa Monica, Los Angeles city proper - as part of more comprehensive strategy to meet greenhouse gas reduction goals set by the State of California.

(Here's a special note from yours truly to cities thinking about an RFP: please don't try to ask for some sort of revenue percentage from the carshare, at least not in the first 5 years. Structure your RFP so there's as much incentive as possible to grow the service in your city. But do include definite evaluation component so you can document the value of carsharing to your city council and residents.)

Partnerships — carsharing companies made some headway in 2009: I-Go Carsharing in Chicago announced a major partnership with the Chicago Transit Authority, ace-ing out Zipcar, for the Chicago Card Plus - a stored value card for transit travel and an RFID card for carsharing. Earlier, I-Go signed another partnership with the Parks District

Developments — Kevin McLaughlin reminds me that, "In Toronto, the city is finally realizing that its all about parking. Both AutoShare and Zipcar have been taking advantage of the development offsets being granted to new condo builders if they provide carsharing parking in their buildings (often as high as 10 fewer spaces per shared car, in the range of $200,000 cost savings!)" Toronto recently approved its first large condo (300 units) with NO PARKING for residents, and 9 shared vehicle onsite."

The City of Winnepeg also provided a developer an alternative to meeting parking requirements by setting up an in-house carsharing service, since no commercial company operates in Winnepeg at the present time (entrepreneurs, Hertz, Enterprise are you listening?)

On street parking continues to a conundrum for many cities. For some reason most continue not to "get it"! They're happy to provide parking for taxi cabs, which are operated by private companies but somehow providing carsharing is controversial, even though the benefits to the city (of having cab stands) are not well documented and the benefits flow to visitors. (I've got nothing against cabs, which employ people and provide a useful service; I just want cities to acknowledge carsharing.)

Technology

On the technology front, the big news was the major investment in French carsharing technology company Eileo by Hertz. Another major development is the joint marketing agreement between Convadis (Swiss car computer maker) and Metavera (Toronto-based carsharing reservation system provider). It was a natural link up since Convadis faced limitations selling their product since they didn't have an integrated reservation system and Metavera was looking for a more fully-featured option to supplement their long-term link up with OpenCar Networks, used by most all of the independent carshares in North America. On the sidelines 5,000 miles away another carsharing technology provider Nic Low of Goget started marketing their own on-board computer for fleet applications at Fleetcutter.

Apps — This was the year of the (iPhone) app (application in non-jargon). Zipcar continued its focus on the flash with what is arguable the industry's biggest (carsharing) marketing coup of all time, scoring inclusion on stage at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference to showcase its iPhone app (replacing the interesting but limited Where app). While scoring headlines and TV segments, as happens with technology, the actual rollout was delayed for months over a seemingly trivial hardware glitch - making sure all the Zipcar's could honk their horns with a tap of the button on the iPhone screen; only to later realize that demonstrations of horn honking capabilities was likely to be highly annoying to neighbors living close to Zipcars (so the feature is only activated after the member has logged in to the vehicle with their member card).

But the independent carshares were on the wave, as well, and Metavera, which provides reservations and support to most of them through the Autovera system, unveiled its a mobile reservation site to work with iPhone, Blackberries, etc., while continuing to improve its web carsharing system with functionality that keeps up with Zip.

Battery electric vehicles edged closer to becoming a viable alternatives to gasoline/diesel with Nissan unveiling the Leaf EV; Daimler, after a year to testing their Smart ED (electric drive) in the UK, started production; BMW demonstrating the EV concept in a Mini, with a host of other companies threatening to manufacture - Norwegian Th!nk finally whirred (one can hardly say "roared" for an EV) back to life announcing a plans to produce their new models in Indiana. The most interesting is Electrovaya, which opened what they called "carsharing" in

Baltimore with a service called Altcar. Although it's being promoted as carsharing, still at year's end all the vehicles were all located at the Maryland Science Center downtown. At the present they still didn't have any electronics to allow unattended access, but I expect they will take the plunge in 2010. Better Place, Shai Aggasi's much promoted and heavily invested EV battery service, which has always indicated it wasn't interested in carsharing, cleverly signed a deal in Denmark for the railroad system (DSB) to operate a public carsharing service at several train stations in Copenhagen and elsewhere. Finally, the City of Paris continued to move closer to their Autolib, EV carsharing system, taking time out in 2009 to get the surrounding cities to participate in the program as well. Similar to car2go, Autolib would offer one way carsharing between stations. Planning on up to 4,000 vehicles in Paris and surrounding communities, Autolib could completely redefine public transportation in Paris, in much the same way the Velib revolutionized bicycle travel there. Or it could be a bust... (or something in between). This Business Week article contains a good update of the status.

Meanwhile, given the US fascination for plug-in hybrids, in 2009 Zipcar followed HourCar (including a solar recharger station) and Autoshare into the Plug In Hybrid world with a single vehicle on their system in San Francisco.

Some comments about specific companies during 2009

Hertz Connect continued to grow their fleet in Manhattan up to over 400 by the end of the year - certainly attracting members that have been frustrated with Zipcar's on-going customer service problems there. Near the end of the year Hertz surprised everyone with announcements of major new international operations in Madrid and Berlin. Fleet sizes in existing cities are up slightly Paris now with 77 and London at 115. Hertz did send a message to Zipcar by listing 4 cars in Boston and further challenged them with token vehicles in Chicago and San Francisco.

U-Carshare (U-Haul) went live in Salt Lake City with 28 vehicles - concluding a protracted RFP process. The Salt Lake operation branched out from the traditional ad-covered PT Cruisers with a wide range of vehicles, including the requisite Mini Cooper, hybrid Civic and Ford Escape, Prius, as well as Toyota Yaris, Mazda 3, Ford Focus and several pickups and larger Ford vans, both passenger and cargo configurations. In other cities, such as Portland, Oregon, U-Carshare vehicle numbers are static and they continue to take a very passive approach to marketing - with no visible advertising other that on-street here and presence at a couple of public events.

WeCar (Enterprise) - continues to play its cards very close, with several university/college deals including University of South Florida in Tampa and some fleet management contracts (with carsharing reservations and access systems). Of course, Enterprise has the biggest challenge integrating carsharing into their existing business model of any car rental company since they already have extensive network of neighborhood rental locations, which, arguably would lose a little business from carsharing but would also likely funnel some longer-term rental business they would otherwise have missed

Independent carshares in North America continue to move forward - most continuing to grow at a more modest rate than previous years. Philly Carshare is on the upswing after disastrous decision to terminate members and raise rates. Nonprofit Boulder Carshare signaled a change of strategy with it's new name EGo, expansion and upgrade of its fleet in Boulder and more significantly locating 2 vehicles in Denver, joining OccasionalCar there (see below). They continue to offer vehicles at the remarkably sensible prices of $4/hr. + 30¢ per mile. Another nonprofit, Austin Carshare, which has been struggling to figure out where the capital to grow would come from since its founding 3 years ago, sent out a letter in the fall to members that they were considering becoming a cooperative. Nothing decided yet - perhaps watching what happens to car2go. Chicago's I-Go Carsharing passed the 13,000 member mark announcing further expansion in targeted suburban pods including Oak Park, Evanston, Skokie, Forest Park, and most recently Des Plaines. Cooperative Auto Network in Vanccouver continues to provide excellent service and supports a number of smaller services in British Columbia with their Carshare Everywhere reservation system.

Both CAN and Autoshare in Toronto have demonstrated for years that in car technology isn't an essential element for a successful carshare although both are finally edging toward it.

New carshares on the street included: CuseCar in upstate Syracuse, New York with a commitment to hybrid gas-electric and alt. fuel vehicles. They are installing EV Chargepoints around the city. They have up to 5 locations. CuseCar has been remarkable in it's ability to attract funding for alt. fuel vehicles ($150K from the NYSERDA) as well as funds to remodel the old Syracuse train station downtown. CarShare Halifax (Nova Scotia, Canada), the furthest east carshare in North America completed it's first year of operations, having launched in December 2008. CarShare HFX is approaching 10 vehicles now. Also launching in December 2008 nonprofit Carshare Vermont serving Burling and Winooski, Vermont. They're up to 9 vehicles and 450 members. At almost the same time for profit CSO OccasionalCar launched in Denver in early 2009 and has 6 vehicles. Finally, in another name change, Roaring Fork Valley Vehicles in Aspen, Colorado changed its name to CarToGo, further crowding the "car to go" naming - joining car2go is Israel and Daimler's car2go in Ulm and Austin.

Meanwhile there's a host of smaller carshares all over the US and especially Canada - with 5, 10, 25 vehicles. And there's continued interest in startups for the second tier cities that the "big boys" don't seem to want to do into. (Portland would probably not have carsharing today if Zipcar or Flexcar were making the decisions.)

Zipcar - last but not least, the market leader probably crossed the line into overall profitability, amidst several mentions of an Initial Public Offering sometime in the not to distant future. They've gotten to profitability by very carefully managing their business - continuing drive more usage (hours per day) on the existing fleet. What expansion they did was primarily in contracted deals with universities, which produce a good flow revenue.

Near the end of the year Zipcar announced another overseas investment, in Avancar, Barcelona, Spain.
The exact terms of the investment are a sketchy but it's going to give Avancar the ability to grow and there's certainly plenty of potential in Barcelona, as well as other cities in Spain. Laying the groundwork for this expansion was an analysis and press release claiming a world wide potential for carsharing at 37 million members and over 10 billion dollars in annual revenues.

Ikea — You might have missed it, but back in March, there was a minor flurry of speculation that multinational retail giant Ikea might be getting into the car business under the brand name of Lesko, around which they developed a stealth marketing campaign. Speculation ran from manufacturing a vehicle to operating a carsharing service. It turns out Lesko IS a carsharing service - but in the UK sense of the word - and what Ikea did was set up a "covoiture" ride board on their web site so people could hitch rides. (How they would get all their stuff home is not explained.) If they'd waited just a little longer they could have bought Saab or Volvo!

Next big things

The big news in my mind was the launch of car2go in Austin. It's a very gutsy move on Daimler's move to launch in an archetypal US city. As I have said elsewhere, I don't believe that car2go is necessarily targeting the classic market, so it has the potential to be the game changer that American urban transportation needs.

I haven't (yet) written about it (since I'm directly involved with it), but another start up that announced itself in 2009 promising to unveil another operating scheme - RelayRides - the first peer to peer (or person to person) carsharing service. It will enable private car owners to make their vehicles available for carsharing for a day or more at a time with the possibility to earn a substantial chunk of money each year. Of course, the operational challenges are significant since you now have to manage both the member/driver and vehicle owner sides of the equation. But, heck, what's technology for, anyway?

So, what did I miss? If so, please click on the Comment button below and remind me what's been happening in your carsharing world. Best wishes for 2010.