Comments on: Hertz Takes Aim at Zipcar

By: Angel

Angel — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 04:43:01 +0000

Nice! This is a nice Zipcar. Really its so nice and colorful. Last week I rode this car. Really it's awesome. I like it very much. I wanna buy this car. May I know the details info about this Zipcar?
Seattle Limo

By: o reginald kluttar

o reginald kluttar — Sun, 08 May 2011 16:35:54 +0000

This field has expanded to include the not-for-profits, as well as ZC, Hertz and UHaul, but has been used for years previous with European and Asian bases. They merely lagged with the US because they did not trust the consumers to use, and not abuse, the vehicles. But their purely income-driven tactics are on a par with the conditions that predicate them as a need. Because they use petrol fuel or hybrid, they are never going to get beyond being an urban phenomenon. So they are part of over-building of high-rises, and the relentless over-burdening of urban systems - particularly waste, traffic and potable water supply. When the technology produces an alternative to the I.C.E., the consumers will return to the individual proprietorship and the urban systems will be upgraded to not need these sort of rides.

Phone up the indy companies yourself, if you don't believe that. Talk to the rep there. Not to the CEO, as they seem to be genuinely above their rank-and-file. But you'll get that officious, thrice-removed attitude from the reps at ZC as most likely with others; they don't want you to ask them a lot of questions. Money makes their world go round, not their Lease-A-Rides.

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By: Erik

Erik — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:48:23 +0000

My wife and I started using Zipcar in Seattle in early 2007. After a 4 month trial, we sold our only car in October 2007. We banked the $5,000 (4% interest = $200/yr) no longer tied up in owning our older BMW, which we did not finance but paid insurance, gas, and maintenance for. We have also saved over $400/month using Zipcar, car-pooling, city bus, taxis, bikes, and trains for over a year now.

We got to use $10,000 on other things by not owning a car for one year.
We will likely save another $5,000 in 2009.

Once we learned how much money we would save using the 4 Zipcars within 1-4 blocks of our place, we understood that owning a car is a far more inefficient use of our hard earned pay than renting Zipcars by the hour. Owning a car is paying in advance for transportation whether we end up needing it or not. We tend to use an owned car more because we have narrowed our options by prepaying and want to get our money's worth.

Zipcar is an option that gives us flexibility to ask "do we want to pay $30 to use a car for 3 hrs + $10 parking to see a movie downtown, or shall we take the bus, or ride bikes and save that $40 for a rainy day?" Most of the time, cars just sit there not being used. We are no longer willing to pay for NOT USING a car.

Look at all the cars parked anywhere you go. Think of the people paying for them to just sit there. The average car is driven 12,000-15,000 miles a year in the USA. The average car is owned for 8760 hours each year but only driven 400-500 hours a year (200-250 hrs/yr if you use average travel speed of 60mph instead of 30mph). 95% or more of the average car's time owned is spent NOT DRIVING. The average Zipcar replaces 15 owned cars.

We drive about 10% of the miles we used to drive. We have access to new Toyota and Honda Hybrids, Subarus with All Wheel Drive, BMWs, Volvos, Mini Coopers, Convertables, Mini-Vans, SUVs and Pickup trucks. We can use Zipcars in citys all over the USA, Canada, and London. If we each need a car at the same time we can each get our own Zipcar. We never need to visit the mechanic again, either. All this convenience for $5,000 LESS per year than owning and maintaining our sweet, old BMW.

By: DivP

DivP — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:58:08 +0000

If you drive to work, you need to buy a car. ZipCar is simply not designed, intended or conceptualized for that situation. It has been perfect for me though. In 2006 my employer set me up to work from home full time (a corporate trend which will continue into the future). My wife walks to college. Since we live in the city close to downtown Boston, the only things we needed a car for was for groceries, socializing and road trips. We order groceries from peapod.com.. so that left the other 2. Our Jetta was $326 + 245 insurance + 250 parking + 100 gas and 100 maintainance (amortized). I calculated that even if we rented every weekend .. it would cost us half as much. So we sold our beloved Jetta and have lived off Zipcars for the past 18 months. Best decision we ever made. Our apartement has 8 zipcars in the garage so we just take the elevator down and instead of taking our own car… its a zip car. We love trying out new cars everytime. The best part is once we are done with visting friends and come back and lock the car… no maintainance or payments to worry about!

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 20:13:24 +0000

What about GAS! You all seem to be missing the fact that the hourly and daily rates from Hertz include gas…. and maintenance, etc…

I don’t see these services though expanding that much simply because they rely to heavily on a public transportation infrastructure to get you to the car in the first place. So once all the urban centers are covered… then what?

By: Bryce

Bryce — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 06:11:09 +0000

This is good though of course, even though these things are only good for those that have limited use for them (myself as a student and urbanites….as well…urbanites) this niche is conveniently filled. I am happy for the little zipcars……though after college, I am definetly going to be using my own car. Thanks zipcar for the few good years.

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 21:19:45 +0000

I live in Brooklyn, New York, where almost nobody commutes by car. I owned a car eight years ago, but that’s only because I got it for free. Even then, insurance in NYC for my old beater was $200/month. Eventually that car died, and even though I don’t need a car to live in NYC, it’s nice to have one, and I was considering buying one when I discovered Zipcar. This totally eliminated my need to own a car.
I’ve been a member since 2003. I use it about once a month for a 24-hr trip, which runs around $125, and occasional 3-4 hour trips at around $10/hr for errands or to buy furniture or for a date. The day rate is actually quite competitive for NYC if you take into account the fact that gas & insurance is included, and EZ Pass, which gets charged to your account.
The Hertz offering looks good, but they only have something like four garages in NYC as compared to probably a couple hundred for Zipcar, three of which are a few blocks from my apartment. I’m glad Hertz joined the field, because competition’s always good.

By: AnneS

AnneS — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 18:59:54 +0000

Like the anonymous user above points out, car sharing is way cheaper than owning a car IF you don't need to use it every day. City Car Share makes it even cheaper, just $10/month and $5 per hour. It usually came to about $55/month for us. That's total!

Compare that to when we bought a new Honda Accord in 2002. Our costs were:

$400/month loan payoff
$200/month insurance (new car in an urban area? Yikes!!!)
$200/month garage rental

So we have $800 versus $55.

Now, granted, car sharing isn't as convenient as hopping in your own car on a whim, BUT because of that, we really reduced extraneous driving trips and instead walked or took the bus. And isn't that one of the main goals? To reduce energy dependence and fuel emissions?

From that perspective, car sharing wins hands down every time.

P.S. (Right now City Car Share has a $0/month trial going on, so it is a good time to check it out.)