Zipcar continues to push the envelope in the car-share/car rental space. The company is introducing the first Electric Vehicle Pod to be located behind Westminster City Hall, in London, UK. The location will include an all-electric vehicle (EV) Citroen c1 and a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) Toyota Prius.
In 2003 Zipcar became the first car sharing company to offer hybrids to its members. In 2004, in partnership with Toyota, Zipcar offered its first EVs – the electrified Toyota RAV 4. In the past 5 years Zipcar has added nearly 1,000 hybrids to its fleet. To date, the company estimates more than 100,000 unique members have driven an EV or hybrid providing members a great way to test drive and evaluate a wide range of alternative energy vehicles. via: press release
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It is good to see a growing number of car rental services including alternate fuel vehicles in their line up. What I’d like to see though is a company that takes old classic cars and converts them to electric yet keeping the stock beauty of the classic inside and out. As classic cars get “older” and less safe I would imagine that would be a viable option that would help preserve the originality of a great history of automobiles.
City CarShare, a San Francisco nonprofit car sharing organization, is pleased to see that Zipcar is integrating more fuel-efficient cars into its fleet. There are a few inaccuracies in your article, however, which we feel compelled to highlight. For example, this article is incorrect in stating that Zipcar was the first to introduce a hybrid into a car share fleet. City CarShare, a leader in introducing green vehicles, introduced hybrids into our fleet in early 2002. We also had eight Ford Think electric vehicles in our fleet in 2002, which were recalled along with all of the Ford Think EVs (we also experienced charging issues described in the article). This year we introduced two hybrid plug-in vehicles – we can’t claim to be the first, however, since Autoshare (Toronto) and HourCar (Minneapolis) were first in North America. While increasing the number of hybrids that Zipcar has in its worldwide fleet is commendable, we hope to see Zipcar continue to increase the percentage of hybrids in its fleet and, for that matter, to include only fuel-efficient and top-rated low-emission vehicles. For City CarShare, and many other independent car share providers, our vehicles are at the top of their class for fuel-efficiency and low emissions, with hybrids comprising over 1/3 of our fleet and growing. As Zipcar provides more eco-sensitive cars – and we hope to see this trend continue – we also encourage them to promote ‘less driving’ by their members, in contrast to their current advertising campaign, which promotes driving as much as you want as long as you return the car. If pursued, these efforts would lead to fewer miles of travel for their customers, reducing total emissions and congestion in the areas they operate. Finally, for those interested, there are approximately 30 independent car share providers in North America, working in their communities to reduce car ownership and driving. Many have contributed to, and adhere to, the Car Share Industry Code of Ethics, which can be found at http://www.carsharingindustry.org