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The next chapter in carsharing in North America is going to be written in Texas. Daimler AG announced that the next city they would test market their innovative Car2Go service would be Austin, Texas. Hardly your prime carsharing territory (although Austin Carshare has been making a go of it).

But then then this is hardly your typical carsharing concept. We're talking on-demand, open-ended, carsharing, allowing one way trips (between stations) using Smart cars (only) presumably at a per minute charge similar to Ulm pilot - 0.19 per minute, 9.90€ per hour and 49€ per day - $26¢ per minute, $13.50 per hour and $66 per day - if prices were translated directly to Austin (which is unknown at this time).

And, of course, it's the first major carsharing operation directly funded by an auto manufacturer, in this case Daimler, which is looking for new business opportunities in the face of radically different environmental and economic future. Here's the car2go promotional video with English titles



We can only hope that Daimler is planning to fund some serious evaluation studies on the usage and impact of car2go since the implications of a such a service are staggering. What is the competition for this service? What trips will it replace? How many Texans want to drive a Smart car? How much will it compete with traditional carsharing (my guess is not too much - as the Smart car itself may be the limiting factor)?

At the public bicycle session I moderated at TRB this year I was exposed to a concept I hadn't fully gasped before - personal public transportation. Previously, my concept of "public transportation" was group transportation (i.e. buses, trains, trams, etc.) but Velib and other public bicycle systems, being funded by local governments, have effectively defined a new niche - personal public transportation - publicly owned, but serving one person at a time in a socially-responsible manner. The Car2Go concept could be viewed as such a service - public and personal - only with a motor vehicle, albeit a specialized one - the unique, fuel-efficient Smart car.

If you'd like to understand more about what Daimler is thinking about in creating the car2go concept, they've posted a 5 minute video (in English) from an October 2008 press conference with several people from the Daimler Business Innovations Group describing the concept.



They've got a lot to do between now and projected fall launch. (Full disclosure, I've been involved with the German consulting firm, Team Red, to help get this project get off the ground.)

In conclusion I can't resist including one of their publicity shots. I doubt it will get any Texans off their horses and on to cow2go!

As ex Presidente (fortunately not for life) George Bush (who lives only 90 miles, but light-years) away from Austin said, "Bring 'em on"! Yee ha!

DB, theDeutsche Bahn, the German railroad operator, has been actively branching out from moving people on rails, offering carsharing (DB Carsharing), car rental (DB Rent) and even bike sharing (Call a Bike) in many German cities. Now they've created another service and another brand, with a unique service model - a hip carsharing service that appears to take it's queue from Zipcar - called Flinkster.

After several months of rumors, Flinkster finally launched in Stuttgart last week, while the launch in Köln announced but, as yet unspecified. Early reports indicated it was going to be similar to the "floating fleet" concept by Daimler of car2go in nearby Ulm, Germany, which would allow vehicles to be parked anywhere in the downtown area. But with actual launch, there's no indication that Flinkster is anything more than a hip version of classic carsharing. Flinkster is actively seeking parking places in these cities and will pay a bounty of membership, usage or even a 2nd class rail pass for parking spaces. Interestingly, the maps provided on the Flinkster website are the DB Carsharing maps and list all vehicles at a location - with Flinkster appearing as one of several classes of vehicles at a location. Here's an early map of the "floating fleet" area, now nowhere to be found on the Flinkster web site. Instead,

The best rate offered by Flinkster is € 1,50 + € 0,25 per kilometer (the equivalent in US dollars of $2 per hour + 20¢ per mile). In comparison, the standard rates for Cambio Carsharing in Cologne charges € 1,70 per hour + € 0,31 per km. But Flinkster's "occasional user" rate actually makes them the highest in Stuttgart according to a comparison done by German carsharing blog. Flinkster offers an increased insurance coverage of € 4 per trip or € 10 per month - reducing the deductible from € 1000 to € 300 per accident.

Cambio reported has about 250 vehicles and over 7,000 members in the city. In one news report Cambio spokesperson is quoted confidently stating, "About Flinkster we are relaxed, our biggest competitor is still car ownership." True, but...

In an interesting move, Flinkster partnered with Alfa Romeo, but not to provide sports cars, but a very nice 2 door, 4 seat sedan, the MiTo, equiped with Bluetooth and CD/mp3 players to appeal to the youth demographic DB says it's after. They emphasize that vehicle meets the strict Euro 5 CO2 standard.

For what it's worth, the name Flinkster was created by a real marketing person. "Link" in German has a similar meaning in English. "Flink" in German means quick and the "ster" (as in "friendster" or "hipster") to make the whole thing personal and cool - sort of "Quick-link-ster"

Perhaps DB wanted to get Flinkster launched and will implement the "floating fleet" concept at a later time (the operational challenges are significant). Otherwise, it seems strange to create a separate brand, especially one that seems likely to cannibalize customers from DB's existing carsharing and rental car services as well? It's worth remembering that for the past decade Germany has been allowing competition in passenger rail service and there are many other regional passenger rail operators, such as Metronome, that offer service renting DB tracks. So it appears that DB has gradually been trying to position itself as an all-around mobility provider, as well as providing rail passengers with the convenience of "combined mobility" (a concept that was first gained prominence about 20 years ago (in an early Swiss carsharing report, "Carsharing - the key to combined mobility").

We will watch with interest. The times they are a changin'.

Sunday's New York Times has a very nice article about carsharing, including a little history of yours truly, as well as Zipcar founder Robin Chase. I think the author Mark Levine has done a nice job telling the story, but then I'm biased since I'm quoted.

Something else the article talks about is the differing views of for-profit and nonprofit carsharing companies. Rick Hutchison of City Carshare is certainly right in saying that carsharing (in it's present form at least) is a low margin business. All companies have been struggling valiantly to increase profit margins since the day they started - for-profits to deliver returns to their investors and nonprofits to avoid rate increases (or maybe even lower rates if they got really big). The entry of car rental companies onto the field suggests they've also run the numbers and think it's not as low a margin business as it appears. My view is that there's room in most, if not all cities, for both for-profit and nonprofit carsharing. After all, less than 1-2% of people living in most neighborhoods served by carsharing are members, so it's not as if there isn't huge potential. In the short run, either one or the other company might give up or they differentiate themselves sufficiently to attract different customers.

I particularly liked this anecdote from Zipcar founder Robin Chase quoted from the article) because it gets to the heart of the dilemma about carsharing:

She and [business partner Antje] Danielson came up with a list of five potential names for the company, and Chase walked around Boston asking people on the street for their reactions. “Antje really wanted to do ‘Wheelshare,’ ” she says, “but that seemed too close to ‘Wheelchair.’ Then we tried ‘U.S. Carshare.’ That was how I learned that 40 percent of the people I talked to had an extremely negative reaction to the word ‘sharing.’ The word makes people nervous. They feel they’re being scolded or told to wait their turn. At that point I banned my staff from using the phrase ‘car sharing.’ Do we call hotels ‘bed sharing’? That’s way too intimate. Do we call bowling ‘shoe sharing’? Who would want to bowl?” Chase landed on the name Zipcar, accompanied by the slogan “Wheels When You Want Them.”



Since we're talking about history, here are some more screen shots from early Zip and Flex web sites (courtesy of WaybackMachine.org). As with Zipcar, Flexcar under founding CEO Neil Peterson, CEO of Flexcar, would avoided the "S" word.


Flexcar's first site hit cyberspace on May 10, 2000 and Zipcar's a few weeks later on June 21. Flexcar stuck with their "Shift Your Thinking" slogan until Revolution LLC came on the scene in 2006 and they decided that "sharing" wasn't a problem and declared themselves to be "the car-sharing company" as well as "the nation's first and best carsharing company".


Both Flex and Zip web sites underwent major upgrades in 2002, with Flexcar losing the orange in the X (apparently in a dispute with Cingular cell phone company which had a remarkably similar image at the time.


That same year Zip tried out another car logo...

...until they came up with their current Z version.

Here's City Carshare in the "old days", also back in 2002.

Sorry, no iconic green VW Beetle on their home page at the time. (Comically, Zipcar actually threatened City Carshare with legal action claiming that Zipcar had trademarked the green Beetle, even though CityCarshare started using them first.)

And to complete our little historical romp, although the original CarSharing Portland website isn't available, here's what the original brochure looked like (circa 1998):

Enough nostalgia. Onward.