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I do really like the idea of a 'shared fleet' to get cars off the road and encourage alternative transport (walking, biking, public transport, ride sharing) and

I do really like the idea of a 'shared fleet' to get cars off the road and encourage alternative transport (walking, biking, public transport, ride sharing) and reduce our 'car culture'. Because these alternatives don't cover all use-cases, I need a car sometimes so I'm mostly forced to bear the rather large expensive of having a car all the time. I'd totally consider ditching my car entirely if I could press a button and reliably get a nice-ish car valet'd to my door in a reasonable amount of time for a reasonable cost. It's unclear if this is where we're at with these companies (and I already have a car sitting in my driveway so i'm already pot committed for awhile)

jonknee 9y ago
I live in Seattle and there are a couple shared fleet services that are pretty close to this. Interestingly they're both owned by car makers (Car2Go [1] by Mercedes and Reach Now [2] by BMW). Sort of like a Zip Car in that you can get into the car with your phone, but unlike a Zip Car you can just park it anywhere within the bounds of the service (they pay the city a monthly fee per car to cover parking). [1] https://www.car2go.com/US/en/ https://www.car2go.com/US/en/ [2] https://reachnow.com/en/seattle-wa/ https://reachnow.com/en/seattle-wa/
GVIrish 9y ago
Yeah Turo would be a bad choice for on demand usage because owners can be a bit flaky, difficult to reach, late, etc. Maybe as it gets more widespread one could lean on the service more but my experience led me to believe that I wouldn't want to depend on it.
GVIrish 9y ago
Yeah Turo would be a bad choice for on demand usage because owners can be a bit flaky, difficult to reach, late, etc. Maybe as it gets more widespread one could lean on the service more but my experience led me to believe that I wouldn't want to depend on it.
xur17 9y ago
I'm in a similar situation. I rarely used my car, and was considering getting rid of it for a while. About a year ago I got rear-ended in a hit and run that totaled the car, so I decided to just try using Uber / Lyft, and decide if I wanted to buy a car. It's been about a year, and I'm pretty seriously considering buying a used car. There are some use cases that Uber and Lyft don't cover, and my only option is to go rent a car, which requires some lead time, etc. Being able to get a car valet'd to my door would be nice, but what I'd really like is to find a neighbor that has 2 cars that they use to drive to work, but would be willing to let me use an extra car of their's on the weekend (for a fee of course). Our city has car2go, but the cars a really tiny, and you can only park them in a small part of the city.
- arm 9y ago
  Have you considered an electric bike?

jonknee 9y ago

I live in Seattle and there are a couple shared fleet services that are pretty close to this. Interestingly they're both owned by car makers (Car2Go [1] by Mercedes and Reach Now [2] by BMW). Sort of like a Zip Car in that you can get into the car with your phone, but unlike a Zip Car you can just park it anywhere within the bounds of the service (they pay the city a monthly fee per car to cover parking). [1] https://www.car2go.com/US/en/ https://www.car2go.com/US/en/ [2] https://reachnow.com/en/seattle-wa/ https://reachnow.com/en/seattle-wa/

GVIrish 9y ago

Yeah Turo would be a bad choice for on demand usage because owners can be a bit flaky, difficult to reach, late, etc. Maybe as it gets more widespread one could lean on the service more but my experience led me to believe that I wouldn't want to depend on it.

GVIrish 9y ago

xur17 9y ago

I'm in a similar situation. I rarely used my car, and was considering getting rid of it for a while. About a year ago I got rear-ended in a hit and run that totaled the car, so I decided to just try using Uber / Lyft, and decide if I wanted to buy a car. It's been about a year, and I'm pretty seriously considering buying a used car. There are some use cases that Uber and Lyft don't cover, and my only option is to go rent a car, which requires some lead time, etc. Being able to get a car valet'd to my door would be nice, but what I'd really like is to find a neighbor that has 2 cars that they use to drive to work, but would be willing to let me use an extra car of their's on the weekend (for a fee of course). Our city has car2go, but the cars a really tiny, and you can only park them in a small part of the city.

arm 9y ago
Have you considered an electric bike?