Mark Walker, the general manager of ZipCar UK — a group that focuses purely on the market of car sharing — gave the Royal Academy of Engineering a pitch on the potential of car clubs to change the ownership model of the automotive industry today.
Car clubs like ZipCar plant vehicles around a city (with a fleet of 1,500 ZipCars currently based in London). You only pay for the times that you want to drive, with a bill that includes your fuel and insurance. A smart card or smartphone app allows you to access the car rather than a key, allowing you to pick up and drop off the car wherever you might need it.
Walker believes that owning a car is an “expensive hassle” for young city dwellers, with parking hard and expensive, insurance costly and taxation an additional cost. For the generation of 20-somethings arriving in built up cities, Walker believes that owning a car is a burden rather than an asset. They want to live a “dynamic, fast lifestyle”, for which the app based ZipCar service is ideally placed.
“It’s through smartphones especially that the concept has come to life,” Walker said. Up to 50 percent of reservation activity is taking place through smartphone apps — making reservations, reporting on the experience, finding out about parking locations all controlled via the ZipCar app.
Marcin Wichary/Flickr/CC BY 2.0
…More at ZipCar hopes to make car sharing an urban norm (Wired UK)
