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The rent-a-car premise has been turned on its ear by Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Zipcar. The company allows city dwellers to reserve cars online for hourly and daily use without the hassles of a rental car center. Zipcar has spread its revolutionary approach nationwide from Atlanta to Seattle with additional lots available at 100 college campuses. The company’s recent agreement with Westminster City Council to create a Zipcar lot in the London borough shows intentions to take this unique idea overseas.
Zipcar is committed to providing a 100-vehicle fleet to Westminster by September 2009. The company will deliver 20 hybrids including the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight Hybrid as part of its initial fleet. Zipcar also provides traditional vehicles such as the Mini Cooper and BMW 318 to its partners for drivers interested in style and power over fuel savings. The Westminster/Zipcar agreement also yields the country’s first all-electric rental vehicle, an electric version of the Citroen C1 developed by Toyota, Peugeot and Citroen.
Westminster City Council and Zipcar have set a goal of 400 vehicles in the car club fleet by 2012 with 30% hybrid vehicles. The borough plans to spread out car lots evenly in places like Marlyebone, Regent’s Park and Mayfair to facilitate rentals from walkers, bus riders and inner city residents. Westminster is ideally suited for a Zipcar franchise considering the area’s EV infrastructure. The city has 14 public charging points and 48 charging stations in secured lots at the moment. Westminster plans to install six additional public stations by January 2010 to anticipate plug-in and electric vehicle rollouts.
The Zipcar model works best in dense cities where residents are likely to bike, take buses and walk to work instead of owning cars. Westminster residents will demonstrate the efficacy of the next step in the Zipcar model for a long-term global rollout. The city’s well-developed charging infrastructure gives it a leg-up on the EV aspect of its Zipcar agreement, which could be a bump in the road for future additions. Zipcar representatives are fond of pointing out that a single Zipcar unit is equivalent to removing 20 vehicles from the road, thereby reducing mileage by 40% among subscribers. If Westminster’s Zipcar lots are successful, the hope is that cities worldwide are willing to invest in this business model to further reduce congestion and greenhouse emissions. Zipcar’s lone barrier to wider success in the United States is the nagging culture of vehicle ownership that makes daily rentals seem onerous to consumers.
