If you have your own car, then have you ever wondered how much time do you actually use one ? Answers can be different depending on people’s job, lifestyle, living place etc. but according to transportation advisers [1], on average, cars are parked 95 % of the time. Every car owner knows that car ownership costs are significant or even high compared to average household spending. These facts can lead to a question: “Why buy a car when you can borrow it ?” Additionally, when we take big cities into consideration where transport is of great importance, there are number of scenarios when people need cars occasionally or for short periods of time e.g.: only when they can’t or don’t want to use public transport.
Of course we all know about car rentals, however, traditional car rental model is too expensive and not convenient enough to be an alternative for car ownership or public transport. This is the area where car sharing concept is coming into play as a part of sharing economy and future of mobility services. Car sharing is a car rental model primarily designed for short-time and short-distance usage in big cities. According to "Car Sharing In Europe" Deloitte report [2] there are at least three major car sharing business models which differ in flexibility, cost, vehicle types and entities involved:
- Free floating car sharing
This is a car sharing model where customers can pick up and return cars in any place within a special zone, most often in central parts of the cities and near airports or railway stations. Once you are registered in the car sharing provider’s system and have mobile app installed, you just search for the nearest car, reserve it and you have 15-30 minutes to pick it up from the place where it is currently parked e.g.: a street, public parking or an airport. You usually open a selected car’s door using mobile app and keys are usually in the glove box with its registration and insurance documents. There are two pricing models: first based on time only and second combining time and distance. Car sharing providers cover parking fees in metered parking zones so you don’t have to worry about tickets. It is also quite easy to park such a car as providers usually offer small city cars like Smart or Toyota Yaris. You can leave a car at any place which is inside the provider’s zone and is in compliance with parking laws and regulations in a particular area. Fuel costs are also covered by a car sharing provider and usually there is a fuel card provided in the glove box next to the car keys.
This is the most flexible and convenient model of car sharing. You pay only for time and/or distance that you actually used the car for and you can return it at a place of your choice. There are many car sharing providers operating in free floating model and the biggest ones are: car2go(Germany, USA, Canada, China, Austria, Italy, Netherlands and Spain) and recently zipcar(USA, Canada, Belgium, France, Spain, UK). In Warsaw there are already three free-floating car sharing providers: PANEK CarSharing, Traficar and 4Mobility
http://media.daimler.com/marsMediaSite/en/instance/picture/Berlin-Car2Go.xhtml?oid=7580994
- Stationary car sharing
Stationary car sharing services are more like traditional car rentals and are meant for longer distances e.g.: between different cities or during weekend tours around a particular region. The main difference and main disadvantage is that we can’t pick up and return cars at random locations but only in designated parking lots or fixed rental stations. It is inflexible for customers as they have to plan their trips with respect to rental station locations and in fact they can’t use cars in the way they would like to. The biggest players are: Flinkster(Germany, Switzerland) and Stadtmobil(Germany). In Warsaw 4Mobility uses also this operating model and offers a bit more prestigious cars (compared to to their free-floating offer) like Mini and BMW 1 and 3 series as well as fancy electric BMW i3
http://polskaparkuje.pl/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/4Mobility_electric_view1.jpg
- P2P car sharing
Unlike the free-floating and stationary models, in which operators provide cars, peer-to-peer model is based on cars belonging to private users. P2P car sharing systems only provide a platform which connects car owners with users, providing insurance and enabling cars to be tracked. The main advantage compared to car sharing providers is the variety of cars available to the user. The process of renting a car is also different here and is usually based on planning your trip in advance with specific dates and a car of your choice. As a next step, platform matches the best offer from available private car owners and after booking, you have to meet the car owner and sign the rental agreement. Its pricing model is also different here and usually a user pays for days he uses a car. This kind of service is rapidly gaining popularity in USA and Canada and the biggest P2P car sharing platform there is Turo. In my opinion this is an advantageous alternative for traditional car rentals e.g.: when you are planning to travel across USA or Canada. This is also a great opportunity to drive some really cool cars like Tesla, Porsche 911 or Nissan GT-R for a reasonable price.
http://www.ineedmoneyasap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Tesla-on-Turo-Airbnb-for-Cars.jpg
Questions:
1. Have you ever used any car sharing service ?
2. What kind of advantages can car sharing bring ?
3. Would you consider replacing having your own car with using car sharing services in the future ? Please give some cons and pros of such a solution
References:
Comments
Car sharing has got some pros, like it may be cheaper than buying ang maintain a car. It may be good especially for someone, who need car from time to time. It also give a chance to ude many different cars, so you can decide what you like - maybe some parameters of cars, maybe some brands.
Pros of replacing own car for car sharing are mentioned above, but there are also a cons, like: you may not have a car when you'll need it. There is limited number of sharing car and there may be nothing for you left. You don't know who was using it before you - maybe he/she had commited some crime and this car is being searched by police? Maybe person before you is messy type and there is a great mess inside, so you have to clean it even a little, so you can enjoy your ride? There may be no valid information about when it was the last at mechanican, what had happened to this car, it there is something wrong with it or id there may be any problems.
I thing that I would ude such solution for example abroad, when taking taxis is too expansive, and I'm there for some limited time.
Arguments concerning condition of the cars are also valid and I think it will be one of the biggest challenges for providers to keep their cars clean and roadworthy.
But personally I'd rather rent a car than buy it, since I prefer bicycle as a primary vehicle in a city.
In my opinion the main advantage is that you can leave a car whenever you want to. It could be a great solution for driving a cor to a party and then come back home by taxi and not have to worry about your car.
I would never consider resigning of having a car. Just because I love having a car. I'm caring about it, I wash it, I can leave my stuff in it. I'm just used to having a car.
But when it comes to big cities, it's not that convenient and even reasonable to have a car. Especially in rush hour.
I like the first idea about Free floating car sharing. It remindes me of Veturilo system with bicycles.
It probably may help to reduce the amount of cars in big cities. Some people only need cars from time to time. The other advantage is that you don't have to pay for repairs and maintenance of the vehicle. Sharing companies would probably buy electric cars and it would reduce the pollution in the cities.
When it comes to me, I wouldn't replace my car. Having your own car makes you independent. You don't rely on anybody. Also you are sure that your car is in a good condition, because your care about it. Cars from sharing services might be damaged or stop working during the ride. Only disadvantage of having your own car is that you have to care about it, but in my opinion it's not a big deal.
I would never change my car. It's the same situation like renting a flat. You have to think about everything (repairs etc.) and pay more but it's your own.
Can sharing can reduce the air pollution in cities (electric cars). Sharing a car instead of having one has the advantage of not worring about renting a garage/ renting parking space near your house.
Renting a car in big cities is convenient so maybe I will decide to rent a car.
2. As i don't really understand i can think of any advantages. Only one is this p2p which is kinda cool. Somthing like AirBnb for cars.
3. Never, i like to have my own so i can have it on every hour everywhere and im the only one responsible for it so i know it wont break down etc. Also i like just to tinker around it sometimes.
Bring the advantages are already here - Services like Turo strive on foreginers who come for a short peroids of time and need a mean of convinient transportation. Also u can check out used versions of a car u might be planning to buy in near future.
I would never replace my car with such service:
Cons:
- You are dependant on the service otherwise you are without the car(they might be out of cars in your area im not talking about car breaking)
- You have no control over to what standart the cars are being taken care of - with my car i have knowledge of what's fine and what's wrong, what the car have been through etc with a loaner u have no idea .
- Having own car (while market dependant)is more economical than using a loaner. You are likely to recoup part of the car costs on its sale balancing whole investment out. With a loaner u re basically using a taxi in wich u have to pay attention, and you are responsible for damages. And u have to tank it.
Pros:
- You dont have to care about maintenance of a car.
- You can pull out of loaner as is not an investment (Taxi is still better though)
- You have control over your ride unlike in taxi - u want a stop at stabucks sure in taxi that will be 30pln/h
- You can behave and do what you want(to some extent)in the car unlike in the taxi.
- Great for foreginers, u dont need to worry about being scammed just type in location into gps and off you go.
-You can "loan" a car u wish to buy, think about buying with services like Turo
Unfortunately I do foresee some problems with the free floating model, mostly the same ones we see with city bikes. The biggest one: People tend to go to certain places at certain times of the day (work, church, home). Its virtually impossible to always provide enough supply at the moment and place its needed (unless you'd hire people to move cars around to accommodate for expected future demand in specific areas).
So yes, car sharing is probably a good way to cut a little of those costs. At the same time I can't imagine this solution to people that live in less developed regions where car is a must - for example in smaller village.
As for advantages of sharing a car I think I can come up with two - you can leave it anywhere, and you can drive it like a company car (You know which car does 100kph on 1st gear and can ride across 30cm curb? The company one ;D).
I wouldn't replace my own car with a shared one, to me, it's private space, while shared cars are like buses, except for no stinking hobos and boozers. Besides, connect that to the 2nd advantage (grinding it on every gear), you can get yourself a nasty surprise, when you loose a gearbox on some intersection.
It can be very cheap. The amount paid for ride is a combination of distance travelled and time spent doing that. So the best conditions to use such services are weekends and evenings. Using carsharing is far cheaper than your own car, it is considerable cheaper than taxi and it is as cheap(or even slightly more) than public transport. There were rides, where I paid something like 2,5 zł for 2 or 3 kilometres of ride.
I would, but I can't since I'm travelling to my home town a lot which is 400 km from Warsaw. That is the only thing that prevent me from selling my own car.