Zipcar - The best new idea in business
Zipcar has already persuaded young urbanites to share wheels. Now the movement is going mainstream - and players like Hertz and Ford want in.
y Paul Keegan
Last Updated: August 27, 2009: 10:43 AM ET
Scott Griffith, CEO of Zipcar
.
Zipcar has already persuaded young urbanites to share wheels. Now the movement is going mainstream - and players like Hertz and Ford want in.
y Paul Keegan
Last Updated: August 27, 2009: 10:43 AM ET
Scott Griffith, CEO of Zipcar
.
How Zipcar works
1. BookMake a reservation at the Zipcar website or with the iPhone application, which launches in September. Your information is transmitted wirelessly to the car's onboard computer system.
2. Unlock Wave your Zipcard at the car's reader on the windshield or press a button on the iPhone app to unlock the car and enable the starter (keys are inside). The iPhone can also make the horn beep to help locate the car.
3. Fill up If gas gets low, you can fill up free using the special charge card in the car. As you drive, beware of breaking the rules: Smokers have been ratted on by fellow Zipsters who spied them puffing away.
4. ExtendIf you're running late, call or text Zipcar and an automated system recognizes your number and lets you extend the rental. Forget to call and you'll be charged a late fee of $50 per hour plus the regular hourly rate.
5. Clean upZipcars are cleaned out and washed weekly, though some members have complained of detecting traces of the previous occupant, such as the hard-to-erase smell of fast food.
Zipcar's new iPhone app lets users locate, reserve, and unlock nearby cars.
(Fortune Magazine) -- Scott Griffith enters the parking lot outside his office in Cambridge, Mass., pulls out his iPhone, and taps a button on the screen. Suddenly a yellow Mini Cooper starts honking like a crazed goose.
Griffith approaches the vehicle and taps the screen again. The doors magically unlock, and under the steering wheel the key dangles from a cord. He starts up the car -- nicknamed "Meneus" -- and drives away at a rate of $11.25 an hour.
Griffith is the 50-year-old CEO of the car-sharing service Zipcar, but he's also just one of the 325,000 members who rely on the company's handy, gassed-up cars to get around.
Just a few years ago the notion that you could persuade upwardly mobile professionals to share cars would have seemed as far-fetched as being able to unlock a car with a telephone. But what started as a counterculture movement in places like Cambridge and Portland, Ore., has gone mainstream.
1. BookMake a reservation at the Zipcar website or with the iPhone application, which launches in September. Your information is transmitted wirelessly to the car's onboard computer system.
2. Unlock Wave your Zipcard at the car's reader on the windshield or press a button on the iPhone app to unlock the car and enable the starter (keys are inside). The iPhone can also make the horn beep to help locate the car.
3. Fill up If gas gets low, you can fill up free using the special charge card in the car. As you drive, beware of breaking the rules: Smokers have been ratted on by fellow Zipsters who spied them puffing away.
4. ExtendIf you're running late, call or text Zipcar and an automated system recognizes your number and lets you extend the rental. Forget to call and you'll be charged a late fee of $50 per hour plus the regular hourly rate.
5. Clean upZipcars are cleaned out and washed weekly, though some members have complained of detecting traces of the previous occupant, such as the hard-to-erase smell of fast food.
Zipcar's new iPhone app lets users locate, reserve, and unlock nearby cars.
(Fortune Magazine) -- Scott Griffith enters the parking lot outside his office in Cambridge, Mass., pulls out his iPhone, and taps a button on the screen. Suddenly a yellow Mini Cooper starts honking like a crazed goose.
Griffith approaches the vehicle and taps the screen again. The doors magically unlock, and under the steering wheel the key dangles from a cord. He starts up the car -- nicknamed "Meneus" -- and drives away at a rate of $11.25 an hour.
Griffith is the 50-year-old CEO of the car-sharing service Zipcar, but he's also just one of the 325,000 members who rely on the company's handy, gassed-up cars to get around.
Just a few years ago the notion that you could persuade upwardly mobile professionals to share cars would have seemed as far-fetched as being able to unlock a car with a telephone. But what started as a counterculture movement in places like Cambridge and Portland, Ore., has gone mainstream.
You can now find Zipcars in most major U.S. cities, including Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, and New York, and in college towns like Ann Arbor and Chapel Hill, as well as in Britain.
Zipcar's annual revenues are $130 million, and the company is growing about 30% a year. Griffith says that Zipcar will turn a profit for the first time in the third quarter of this year, and he hopes to take the company public next year.
Netflix for cars
Zipcar's annual revenues are $130 million, and the company is growing about 30% a year. Griffith says that Zipcar will turn a profit for the first time in the third quarter of this year, and he hopes to take the company public next year.
Netflix for cars
For drivers who already share movies via Netflix and stream music rather than buying CDs, the idea of sharing a car is the natural extension of a hip, financially smart, and environmentally conscious urban lifestyle.
After all, drivers who give up their cars and switch to Zipcar say they save an average of $600 per month. Car sharers report reducing their vehicle miles traveled by 44%, according to Susan Shaheen of the University of California at Berkeley, and surveys in Europe show CO2 emissions are being cut by up to 50% per user.
"When I meet another Zipcar member at a party or something, I feel like we have something in common," says Francis Smith, a photographer who lives in Brooklyn. "It's like we're both making intelligent choices about our lives."
"When I meet another Zipcar member at a party or something, I feel like we have something in common," says Francis Smith, a photographer who lives in Brooklyn. "It's like we're both making intelligent choices about our lives."
Businesses are catching on too. About 8,500 companies have signed up for the service, including Lockheed Martin (LMT, Fortune 500), Gap (GPS, Fortune 500), and Nike (NKE, Fortune 500). So have 120 colleges and universities, such as Carnegie Mellon and the University of Miami.
Zipcar is also marketing its technology -- the hardware and software that keep track of the cars -- to city governments. Washington, D.C., retrofitted its fleet this year using Zipcar's wireless systems and estimates that the move will save it $1 million a year. "It's just such a no-brainer," says Ralph Burns, who manages the D.C. government fleet. "Agencies putting their budgets together for next year are calling me up and saying, 'Ralph, I've got 25 cars I want to get rid of!'"
Though car sharing is an audacious challenge to the whole principle of car ownership -- each shared vehicle takes up to 20 cars off the road as members sell their rides or decide not to buy new ones, says Shaheen -- the auto industry is increasingly realizing it has little choice but to play ball.
Zipcar is also marketing its technology -- the hardware and software that keep track of the cars -- to city governments. Washington, D.C., retrofitted its fleet this year using Zipcar's wireless systems and estimates that the move will save it $1 million a year. "It's just such a no-brainer," says Ralph Burns, who manages the D.C. government fleet. "Agencies putting their budgets together for next year are calling me up and saying, 'Ralph, I've got 25 cars I want to get rid of!'"
Though car sharing is an audacious challenge to the whole principle of car ownership -- each shared vehicle takes up to 20 cars off the road as members sell their rides or decide not to buy new ones, says Shaheen -- the auto industry is increasingly realizing it has little choice but to play ball.
Toyota (TM) and Ford (F, Fortune 500) have already begun exploring ways to work with Zipcar, from using its members to test electric cars to designing vehicles specifically for the sharing market.
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