Washblog

I want to buy a FlexCar vehicle and park it in my driveway.

I'd buy a standard issue fleet vehicle, preferably the Honda Civic hybrid, at their negotiated fleet discount price.

I'd have to reserve my own car to use it, just like everyone else.

I'd get a share of the revenue received using my car. This is my incentive to share my car; to help defray my costs.

Open Questions

I know nothing about insurance, liability, etc. I'd want FlexCar to work out the details and handle it.

I'd want FlexCar to handle the regular maintenance and any repairs.

There should probably be contracts and exit clauses and all that lawyerly stuff.

For people who use their car to commute to work, the FlexCar reserved parking spot needs to be at the office. Of course, FlexCar members could use my car throughout the day.

What is the fleet price? If enough of us do this, we should get a pretty good discount.

I imagine FlexCar has some calculus for determining where to place one of their vehicles. I'd want to feed in my address, turn the crank, and get an estimate for how much of my capital expense I could get back over time.

The Inspiration

About 15 years ago, my buddy Arden Ferrin wrote a sci-fi novel (not published). One of his ideas was replacing car ownership with universal car rentals. There would be car depots everywhere. Hop in a car, drive to where you're going, abandon the car at the nearest depot, pay the faire. Maybe the depots are normal curbside parking. So this is his idea. Thanks Arden!

The angle of a customer funded  "network" expansion comes from Clay Shirky. He's an insightful commentator on technology and society. Ignore his wisdom at your own peril. The source article is Customer-owned Networks: ZapMail and the Telecommunications Industry.

The book Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution includes examples of companies that changed from being producers to service providers (and making more money doing it). If FlexCar, or someone, could pull this off, it'd be a brilliant example. Specifically, changing the market from car owners to car renters, and car sellers to transportation service providers.

Commentary

We need to reduce our use of fossil fuels. We also need to reduce our dependancy on foreign sources of energy. I believe that widespread vehicle sharing is a piece of that puzzle.

FlexCar's Vision claims that 50% of urban land is devoted to accommodating vehicles and that America's 2.1 billion vehicles are parked 90% of the time. Imagine if we were able halve the number of cars. We'd be able to reclaim our open spaces, repurpose the extra pavement, and increase urban density. All concrete steps to reducing our ecological footprint.

I enthusiastically support all forms of public transit. That said, I don't think they're the  sole solutions to reducing grid lock and greenhouse gases. They're stop gap measures at most. The reason is that top down, "Big Bang" projects are expensive, below the critical mass threshold (therefore poor return on investment), and rarely meet expectations.

Whatever your mode of transportation -- public transit, vehicle sharing, riding sharing, cycling, walking, or a global warming vehicle (e.g. Hummer) -- the true source of waste, long commutes, gridlock, pollution and other inefficiencies comes from poor land use decisions. Reduce the number of vehicles and we'd be able to increase urban density. If we increase density, many more transportation options become economically attractive.

The End

That's the idea. I hope it's helpful. Please comment.

Also, if you know someone at FlexCar, please forward this to them.