Car-Sharing Bonanza: Zipcar and Flexcar Merge
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 11. 2.07
Reports from both coasts are announcing that car-sharing companies Zipcar and Flexcar are going to merge. Technically, it looks like Boston-area-based Zipcar will absorb the smaller Seattle-based Flexcar; together, the new company will have 5,000 vehicles and 180,000 subscribers in 48 cities from Seattle to London. The company will retain the Zipcar moniker, and Flexcar CEO Mark Norman, above left, will stay on board as president and chief operating officer (Scott Griffith, above right, remains Zipcar CEO).
Flexcar has concentrated on the West Coast market, while Zipcar operates mostly in the East, as well as in London, Vancouver, B.C., and Toronto. In two overlapping markets, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., the combined fleets will offer more cars and more locations to its members. United under a single brand, the company hopes that the continent-wide coverage will help it scale up its service and ultimately help convince more people that they don't have to own their own cars. Stay tuned for more; TreeHugger likes the idea of car sharing so we hope that the new Zipcar will also be an improved one as well. ::Zipcar and ::Flexcar via ::AutoblogGreen
and as the competition merges and posts more ads and gets more airtime, let's not forget the other guys who have been around forever - like Vancouver BC's Cooperative Auto Network. a not-for-profit, homegrown cooperative, they're so well-known in town (it seems mostly by word of mouth) that people know exactly what you mean when you say, "i joined the car co-op" :)
I sold my car when flexcar came along with its "frequent flexar" plan of $30 a month and $3 an hour. All through this merger -- that I'm supposed to be sooo excited about, according to flexcar -- they have failed to tell me what will happen to my plan. Finally I find it in the small print -- my $3 an hour plan turns into an $8.75 an hour plan. Every email they've sent me in the past months they've given an email address and noted that they'd LOVE to hear from me. with any questions or comments. Yet they have answered not one email I've sent in the past few weeks. What a mess -- what nonexistent customer service. Good for them! They're merging! And people like me will go back to owning cars.
The merger is not all its cracked up to be. See the link. And thanks for listening.
http://la.curbed.com/archives/2008/01/ask_curbed_how_4.php