4 ms·

The Secret Lives of Zipcar Drivers

28 points by mef 14y ago

rsanchez1 14y ago
Honestly, their findings are what I would have assumed in the first place. It makes more sense to me that people would use Zipcar because it's more convenient than buying your own car and paying insurance on it. The social and environmental factors seem to me more like an "oh by the way", rather than primary motivators.
- omegaworks 14y ago
  I didn't even know they had a messageboard. I just found a coat in the trunk of the mini cooper I just rented. I had the strong urge to just throw it away because it was taking up space I was using for groceries. Instead I left it in the car, in case its old owners came looking for it. I didn't want to get charged for leaving trash though...
  - malandrew 14y ago
    Seems like there should be a feature that allows you to alert the previous driver of belongings left in the car without violating that person's privacy by providing contact info.
- swdunlop 14y ago
  The researchers deserve a lot of derision, here. It's not like people decide to rent a car by the hour to save the whales. The only intangible benefit in my mind when renting a zipcar is the knowledge that I won't have to direct one of Seattle's horrible cabbies around my neighborhood or pay a ridiculous amount of maintenance and insurance for the possibility that I might want to pick up groceries this month.
gersh 14y ago
From the comments to the article, Chicago's I-Go Car Sharing's consumer survey seems to showed "helping the environment" as the 6th most important reason for being a member. I wonder if this is about car sharing in general, or more a reflection of Zipcar? Do people just not like Zipcar? Does Zipcar have specific policies that anger people?
- URSpider94 14y ago
  6th most important means "not very important".
rhizome 14y ago
One guy in the article touches on it: many succumb to the moral hazard to be a traffic menace. Some of the worst drivers on the road are car-share members.
BadassFractal 14y ago
What are people's thoughts on switching from car ownership to using Zipcar if you're living in a city like SF and need the car maybe once-twice a week for grocery shopping or occasional drive to South Bay? Does it pay for itself?
- CookWithMe 14y ago
  I don't know how good the service is in SF, but generally I can recommend it strongly for this use case. My parents did that around 2000 for 3 or 4 years (in Germany, in a bigger city). We rented a car once a week for grocery shopping and sometimes for a family trip (we even did a 2-week holiday trip with a rented car). With this usage we definitely saved money. And a lot of time, because you don't have to care about repairing the car, taxes, ... My father got a new job, moved to a small city without a car sharing service and bought a mercedes. He probably wouldn't "downgrade", but he is constantly annoyed because he has to care about all the small details (changing tires in the winter, refilling oil, then often small things like light bulbs break, ...).
- GertG 14y ago
  From personal (European) experience, I can also recommend it. If moderately used, it's dirt cheap compared to owning a car. I spend about as much on it as just renting a garage would cost me in Brussels. I was not a heavy car user even when I had a company car, but I do notice that I try to organize things even better so as to e.g. minimize shopping trips (do one trip for the big stuff every x weeks, use public transport or bike for the rest). And that's what the article completely misses: the system encourages behaviour that ultimately benefits the community, regardless of the individual user's noble or less noble intentions. (For the record, I certainly don't see car sharing as a temporary solution before getting my own car.)
zaroth 14y ago
After the fatal accident of that Googler's car in a car-sharing arrangement, I would assume that any 'real' ride-sharing is significantly reduced. There's just too much personal liability compared to AirBnB type of sharing. A car is a complex piece of machinery. You keep everything on your car running absolutely perfectly? Well, it's great if you can afford that. Probably you're not in the target demographic. Most people who share their own rides assume it's at least going to break even, if not much more. But if there's an accident, how easy is it for the driver to just claim it was the car? They can ditch the fault if the car itself was faulty. There's just too much incentive for a stranger to take advantage and cost you a lot of money. The premise of ride sharing is the willingness to put yourself at someone else's mercy. It's a basic foundation of trust between two non-familiar people that doesn't exist in our culture. OK, so take the human component out of it. What's left is a for-profit corporation handing cars out for cheap. No one should be surprised when people take them up on the offer out of economic benefit! They are able to provide cars for cheap, if they are in your area, and you want a cheap char, why wouldn't you use them? I think they should fully accept your fate, and pivot into the worlds absolute BEST rental car company. Just maximize utilization! They've built all the infrastructure they need, they could kill it in this space like UBER is killing it in valet.
- swdunlop 14y ago
  That's essentially what Zipcar is. It's a pay by the hour car rental service with a good interface. They call it "sharing" just to get around a lot of legal and cultural baggage associated with rental.
  - zaroth 14y ago
    I've never gone on a business trip and thought, oh, I should rent with zipcar. Business is a huge segment of the rental market and I think they're leaving business on the table.
    - swdunlop 14y ago
      I used it infrequently as a consultant; my company actually introduced me to the service -- but we used it to supplement traditional rentals, not replace them. Got to run out to play pet engineer for a scoping meeting? Grab a zipcar. Stuck in the ass end of the midwest for a two week engagement? Traditional rental. I don't think they are leaving it on the table, I think their schedule of fees means they are carving out a spot that the rental companies totally ignored.
roel_v 14y ago
People are rational, news at 11? I also LOL'ed at this: "They care about the environment. They want to take cars off the road. They’ve created a trusting community to share assets that previous generations insisted on owning. This is all a very European notion," Sure this is a very European notion. Come have a look at our roads and landscape and streets to see for yourself rollseyes. Then again, I guess you can't expect a marketing professor to understand concepts like 'observer bias' or 'sample size'.
dman 14y ago
Some of zipcar's policies make me feel that they are just using the word community to lower their operational costs rather than actually believing in it. Eg a) If the person ahead of you is late, zipcar will not automatically give you an extension for the time lost because you got the car late. They will if you call them, but not by default. b) They charge a late fee because the person next in line is being inconvenienced. How about splitting the late fee with the person being inconvenienced? c) If you have a zipcar plan where you prepay then getting money out when you cancel the service used to be problematic as of 2 years ago.
amalag 14y ago
Will we see car co-op's in the same way we see grocery store co-ops? That would be more of a community, but I think the comparison of zip-cars to hotel rooms is quite apt.

28 points by mef 14y ago

Honestly, their findings are what I would have assumed in the first place. It makes more sense to me that people would use Zipcar because it's more convenient than buying your own car and paying insurance on it. The social and environmental factors seem to me more like an "oh by the way", rather than primary motivators.

omegaworks 14y ago
I didn't even know they had a messageboard. I just found a coat in the trunk of the mini cooper I just rented. I had the strong urge to just throw it away because it was taking up space I was using for groceries. Instead I left it in the car, in case its old owners came looking for it. I didn't want to get charged for leaving trash though...
- malandrew 14y ago
  Seems like there should be a feature that allows you to alert the previous driver of belongings left in the car without violating that person's privacy by providing contact info.
swdunlop 14y ago
The researchers deserve a lot of derision, here. It's not like people decide to rent a car by the hour to save the whales. The only intangible benefit in my mind when renting a zipcar is the knowledge that I won't have to direct one of Seattle's horrible cabbies around my neighborhood or pay a ridiculous amount of maintenance and insurance for the possibility that I might want to pick up groceries this month.

gersh 14y ago

From the comments to the article, Chicago's I-Go Car Sharing's consumer survey seems to showed "helping the environment" as the 6th most important reason for being a member. I wonder if this is about car sharing in general, or more a reflection of Zipcar? Do people just not like Zipcar? Does Zipcar have specific policies that anger people?

URSpider94 14y ago
6th most important means "not very important".

rhizome 14y ago

One guy in the article touches on it: many succumb to the moral hazard to be a traffic menace. Some of the worst drivers on the road are car-share members.

BadassFractal 14y ago

What are people's thoughts on switching from car ownership to using Zipcar if you're living in a city like SF and need the car maybe once-twice a week for grocery shopping or occasional drive to South Bay? Does it pay for itself?

CookWithMe 14y ago
I don't know how good the service is in SF, but generally I can recommend it strongly for this use case. My parents did that around 2000 for 3 or 4 years (in Germany, in a bigger city). We rented a car once a week for grocery shopping and sometimes for a family trip (we even did a 2-week holiday trip with a rented car). With this usage we definitely saved money. And a lot of time, because you don't have to care about repairing the car, taxes, ... My father got a new job, moved to a small city without a car sharing service and bought a mercedes. He probably wouldn't "downgrade", but he is constantly annoyed because he has to care about all the small details (changing tires in the winter, refilling oil, then often small things like light bulbs break, ...).
GertG 14y ago
From personal (European) experience, I can also recommend it. If moderately used, it's dirt cheap compared to owning a car. I spend about as much on it as just renting a garage would cost me in Brussels. I was not a heavy car user even when I had a company car, but I do notice that I try to organize things even better so as to e.g. minimize shopping trips (do one trip for the big stuff every x weeks, use public transport or bike for the rest). And that's what the article completely misses: the system encourages behaviour that ultimately benefits the community, regardless of the individual user's noble or less noble intentions. (For the record, I certainly don't see car sharing as a temporary solution before getting my own car.)

zaroth 14y ago

After the fatal accident of that Googler's car in a car-sharing arrangement, I would assume that any 'real' ride-sharing is significantly reduced. There's just too much personal liability compared to AirBnB type of sharing. A car is a complex piece of machinery. You keep everything on your car running absolutely perfectly? Well, it's great if you can afford that. Probably you're not in the target demographic. Most people who share their own rides assume it's at least going to break even, if not much more. But if there's an accident, how easy is it for the driver to just claim it was the car? They can ditch the fault if the car itself was faulty. There's just too much incentive for a stranger to take advantage and cost you a lot of money. The premise of ride sharing is the willingness to put yourself at someone else's mercy. It's a basic foundation of trust between two non-familiar people that doesn't exist in our culture. OK, so take the human component out of it. What's left is a for-profit corporation handing cars out for cheap. No one should be surprised when people take them up on the offer out of economic benefit! They are able to provide cars for cheap, if they are in your area, and you want a cheap char, why wouldn't you use them? I think they should fully accept your fate, and pivot into the worlds absolute BEST rental car company. Just maximize utilization! They've built all the infrastructure they need, they could kill it in this space like UBER is killing it in valet.

swdunlop 14y ago
That's essentially what Zipcar is. It's a pay by the hour car rental service with a good interface. They call it "sharing" just to get around a lot of legal and cultural baggage associated with rental.
- zaroth 14y ago
  I've never gone on a business trip and thought, oh, I should rent with zipcar. Business is a huge segment of the rental market and I think they're leaving business on the table.
  - swdunlop 14y ago
    I used it infrequently as a consultant; my company actually introduced me to the service -- but we used it to supplement traditional rentals, not replace them. Got to run out to play pet engineer for a scoping meeting? Grab a zipcar. Stuck in the ass end of the midwest for a two week engagement? Traditional rental. I don't think they are leaving it on the table, I think their schedule of fees means they are carving out a spot that the rental companies totally ignored.

roel_v 14y ago

People are rational, news at 11? I also LOL'ed at this: "They care about the environment. They want to take cars off the road. They’ve created a trusting community to share assets that previous generations insisted on owning. This is all a very European notion," Sure this is a very European notion. Come have a look at our roads and landscape and streets to see for yourself rollseyes. Then again, I guess you can't expect a marketing professor to understand concepts like 'observer bias' or 'sample size'.

dman 14y ago

Some of zipcar's policies make me feel that they are just using the word community to lower their operational costs rather than actually believing in it. Eg a) If the person ahead of you is late, zipcar will not automatically give you an extension for the time lost because you got the car late. They will if you call them, but not by default. b) They charge a late fee because the person next in line is being inconvenienced. How about splitting the late fee with the person being inconvenienced? c) If you have a zipcar plan where you prepay then getting money out when you cancel the service used to be problematic as of 2 years ago.

amalag 14y ago

Will we see car co-op's in the same way we see grocery store co-ops? That would be more of a community, but I think the comparison of zip-cars to hotel rooms is quite apt.