One wonders, with capitalism's "creative destruction" and all the tech-head focus on "disruption" does it really make sense to pit a pile of newcomers against Car2Go? Won't that destabilize Car2Go (economically, at least) and make it, fundamentally, less reliable?
Asking for a friend.

Isn't Zipcar still happening?

I'd rather have one car share company with 2000 cars than 4 companies with 500. 4 different apps, 4 different membership cards (and fees?) and 4 different sets of rules.

I suppose competition is good, but...ugh.

@2,

It's still around, but you have to drop it off where you picked it up, so it's no good if you're not just using it for short errands. Back when I was car-less, I found that renting a traditional rental car for one day was cheaper, although less convenient, than taking Zipcar for six hours.

@4 is correct. I frequently rent cars for $6 to $16 a day from car rental agencies instead of paying that much per hour.

That said, going to get a Tesla C or Chevy Bolt or iBMW this year. Cheap green low maintenance electrics rock hard.

Ultimately, the increased usage of car rentals such as Car2Go reflects very poorly on the city's public transportation system. 2000 Seattleites may have given up a personal car, but they haven't given up cars. Just like personal car owners, they create and contribute to traffic, take up parking spaces and produce greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. Obviously the city and county pols like the car shares such as Car2Go because they are safety valves that get them off the hook for facilitating the improvement of public transportation.

I'm no innocent for I own a car myself to get to the places where buses cannot do so conveniently.

When you examine the car share vs. ownership, is there really a whole lot of difference other than the expenses associated with ownership, and possibly greater access?

Continue with your back patting:).

Even if it is inconvenient because you have to park it in the same spot...Zipcar is still a car sharing service (although I feel like they've kind of gone downhill a bit since being acquired by Avis).

@6 is not wrong. There's a reason Seattle is car2go's great success story: a city of moderate density where parking a personal car is just expensive/a pain enough to be offputting, where there exists a palpable, latent craving for the ability to get around without being shackled to car ownership, but where public transit remains shitty enough that most trips will cost you thrice the time and infinitely more stress than driving.

Needless to say, car2go has not enjoyed nearly the same success in Vancouver, where public transit is infinitely more likely to be competitive on time and cost.

The very best thing about car2go is that it makes the city's worst drivers easy to spot

@9: We're on the clock, we have to drive like that.

I came here to echo what @6 and @8 have already said. The post makes the statement "The service is actually decreasing the number of cars on the road." Is that true?

It doesn't necessarily follow that trading in your personal car for a car share leads to less driving. Maybe it does, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a modest decrease, but is there evidence for that assertion?

I always thought the real benefit of car sharing was in reducing the individual cost of access to a vehicle in urban areas where you didn't need a car every day. If it also reduces private vehicle trips and traffic then great, but that's not an obvious outcome (and I could also be wrong).

And of course those 700-1,100 vehicles that Car2Go users have given up didn't just evaporate. They are still on the road, just being driven by someone else. As others said above, improving public transit is the answer, not trading one car for another car.

I also wonder about the correlation between substitution of car2go (which I really like!) for the number of 'cars on the road'. Presumably personally-owned cars spend way less time per day in use than the cars2go, some of which are used constantly in high-density neighborhoods.

@7 - Just a personal anecdote, but down here I think Zipcar has actually gotten better. Mercifully, they took their stupid fucking logo off their car doors in favor of a modest window sticker, and customer service is actually pretty spot on, unlike my experience with them a few years ago.

Car sharing actually results in significant reductions in overall miles driven per participant, vehicle ownership and GHG emissions. Here's one example of multiple studies that back this up:

http://www.tsrc.berkeley.edu/sites/tsrc.…

People who share a car tend to use transit, bicycles and their feet significantly more than they did when they owned a car. They also tend to save buckets of money.

There's a lot more car-sharing research available online. To find it, start by searching for "Shaheen and car-sharing".

I don't doubt that people who use car share services use public transportation, bicycles, and drive modestly. But imagine if we had an excellent public transportation system as opposed to one that is merely functional during the rush hour? Most of the car sharing would be almost unnecessary. The excitement and attention to car sharing reduces the political heat to create a viable right of way public transportation system which we will definitely need with our increasing population and urbanization. After all, we may end up growing to the point that the car shares will have trouble finding parking spaces, if they aren't already.

Car sharing our way out of our transportation challenges is a fallacy, so let's stop talking like it's possible.

Re. "Car sharing our way out of our transportation challenges is a fallacy, so let's stop talking like it's possible."

I don't think it's a fallacy at all.

The 2,000 people who ditched a car in Seattle and are using Car2go are almost certainly also contributing the the increased demand for public transit. This increased transit ridership should lead to more support and investment in increased public transit.

Again: car-sharers tend to rely on transit or bikes for their daily commute, and they use a carshare car as a last resort, when they're going somewhere that isn't well served or convenient via public transit. The research makes this clear: car-sharing INCREASES transit ridership.

Personally I use transit most often and car2go as a last resort. A large number of my friends do too. Most people I know who use the service don't have cars and haven't for years. We used to rent a car every month or so for a weekend so we could get certain things done and now we don't even have to do that! Our transit reliance hasn't flagged in the least and we are contributing to a system that is used constantly and efficiently. My life has changed for the better with car sharing and I still love taking the bus and walking too. Transit and car sharing are far from mutually exclusive