Worldchanging recognizes the almost revolutionary potential of product-service systems. Because it’s one of the best demonstrations of that potential, they have been vocal supporters of carsharing, and they want to see it work.
Erica Barnett writes on the Worldchanging blog: “I hate dealing with most companies. But I loved Flexcar.
Last October, Flexcar announced it was merging with the larger Cambridge, MA-based Zipcar–an occasion I wrote about, optimistically but with some trepidation, for this site. (..) At the time, I called Flexcar a “scrappy little challenger to the big bad auto industry, offering infrequent drivers like me an affordable, ethical alternative to buying a car or renting from one of the big car rental companies.”
According to Erica Zipcar is “Philosophically miles away from its carsharing roots–an understandable evolution for a for-profit company” A part of their policy she still describes as “a shame from a corporation that purports to care about “the significant, positive environmental impact of car sharing”.
more about the Zipcar concept of sharing a car at their corporate website
Worldchanging recognizes the almost revolutionary potential of product-service systems. Because it’s one of the best demonstrations of that potential, they have been vocal supporters of carsharing, and they want to see it work.
Erica Barnett writes on the Worldchanging blog: “I hate dealing with most companies. But I loved Flexcar.
Last October, Flexcar announced it was [...]
Comments
@ 01:08
I lost my respect for ZipCar when their CEO argued during a TEDtalk that the high cost of renting a ZipCar was beneficial to the environment. Under that logic Exxon is the greenest company on earth.
You want to get cars off the road? Make them cheaper to rent, not more expensive.
@ 07:40
Get cars off the road by making them cheaper? I see someone slept through Economics 101 in college.
Car-sharing has two purposes: free up parking spaces, while reducing the number of cars on the road. The latter is especially difficult, because green improvements sometimes create perverse situations. For example, installing an on-demand hot-water heater will eliminate losses from tank-based heaters, but they cause people to take longer hot showers since you no longer have a risk of running out of hot water — this results in a net *increase* in energy use.
Similarly, in cities, Zipcar must be expensive in order to keep cars off the road. It is actually unclear if it’s at all environmental beneficial in, say, New York City — by making it more convenient to rent a car, it may actually induce extra car usage (much like the convenience of constant hot water induces longer showers).
In order to do any good at all, Zipcar must cost quite a bit more than public transportation + the value of your time that you waste by taking public transportation. In this way, only those truly vital car needs are displaced onto Zipcar (vs. owning your own car). The hope is that, once you give up your own car, the high cost of using Zipcar will then force you to think twice about using a car vs. public transportation. So where you once would have taken your own car, you might now hop on the bus or subway because it’s too inconvenient to use Zipcar.
It’s all about having a lower fixed cost, and a higher marginal cost. Take an Economics 101 course sometime, you’ll be amazed at how you can structure capitalism to work for the greater good.