Zipcar Revolution

    USA - Zipcar was founded by Robin Chase and Antje Danielson in 1999.  The first Zipcars made their way to the streets in the year 2000 in Boston, Massachusetts.  Another car sharing company named Flexcar was founded in the year 2000 (although the idea was formed and started in 1998), and is the largest oldest car sharing company in the United States.   Flexcar recently merged with Zipcar in 2007, the second largest car sharing company in the United States.  There are many other small car sharing companies across the US, but for the most part they remain sequestered in their cities of origin. 
    There are Zipcar locations in each of these cities: Seattle, Boston, Chicago, Gainesville, London, New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco, Stanford, Toronto, Ann Arbor, Vancouver, Washington D.C.  Zipcar is constantly expanding and getting new members, especially with the way gas prices are rising across North America.  
    To drive a Zipcar you have to purchase a plan, much like a cell phone plan.  The plan costs about 50 dollars a year -- that’s if you never drive a car, that’s your base cost.  Every time you get into a Zipcar and drive it the hourly rate is 10 dollars and up.  To drive the Zipcar around all day it costs 68 dollars. 
     Lets crunch the numbers.  If you need to drive a Zipcar 3 times a week for 49 weeks that's 147 times that you’d be driving a Zipcar in just one year (not counting ‘vacation’ time).  We can take the number of times you’d be driving the Zipcar and, multiply it by 15 dollars.  That’s an average of a little over one hours worth of driving a day.  The cost is 2,205 dollars for one year of minimal use.
Now the same numbers are run except we are going to say you will be using the Zipcar all day, every time you drive.  Now the total with the 50 dollar membership fee is 10,046 dollars.  Remember that this is still only driving the Zipcar around all day for a mere three days a week.   (These figures do not include the one time 25 dollar application fee, and is just an average of the many different plans and costs, the most expensive plan being more than 250 dollars a month.)
    Does this actually save you money?  If you are going to be driving the Zipcar around more than three times a week for all day excursions then it’d be better for you, economically to purchase your own used car. 
    A bonus of driving the Zipcar is a gas card is always in the car waiting for it’s drivers to use it to fill up.  Gas, car insurance and parking are included in the cost.  Granted the parking is only if you park in special Zipcar metered locations.
    In Washington DC for example the public transit system is called the Metro.  Zipcar has over 40 places along the metro line waiting for members to get in and drive away.  Another bonus is when you reserve a Zipcar you get free miles for every hour.  If you reserve 24 hours in advance you get 180 free miles to drive.  For a two day reservation you can get up to 360 free miles, that is the highest number you can get for free mileage.
    There is a slight downside to all things, so here are some of the major downsides of using Zipcar.  If you return the Zipcar late it’s 50 dollars per hour plus regular driving hours fee.  The Zipcars do not have baby seats or roof racks, but you can purchase your own to use in/on the cars.  You are not allowed to have pets in the vehicle nor are you allowed to smoke in the vehicle; doing either of these two things will result in steep penalties. The Zipcar must have more than 1/4 of a tank of gas, and be returned to the assigned parking location.  If you get in an accident, or in any way damage the interior or exterior of the car then you will be charged/penalized.
    Zipcar is now the largest car sharing company in the world.  Zipcars are located in over 50 cities throughout North America and the UK, with more then 5,000 cars and over 200,000 members.   It’s time to start looking for Zipcars in cities near you.