The other day, I wrote a post about Zimride, a new online carpool app that integrates with Facebook to match up riders and drivers. I knew when I wrote that post that I had seen another similar program in the iTunes Application store, but couldn't remember the name at the time. Well, thanks to the people behind that iPhone/iPod Touch app (who are apparently AutoblogGreen readers and wrote in to remind me what I'd seen) I can now confidently say that what I'd seen was called Carticipate.

I downloaded the app (it's free) and fiddled with it for a while. The controls seem all right, but the biggest problem is that there are no rides or riders available in my area. As Carticipate's Steffen wrote in to us, the production version of the app has only been out about two weeks, so we might need to wait a while to see if this "experiment in social transportation (TM)" is something worth logging onto. Anyone else tried it?

[Source: Carticipate]

If Zipcar were available in the city where I live, I'm pretty sure I'd be one of the first to sign up. And the realization that sharing a car is a good idea has struck a lot of people around the country. In fact, Zipcar's membership should hit 300,000 this year, an 80 percent increase compared to 2007 (Zipcar and its main rival Flexcar merged late last year). So why is the Zipcar not making any money?

This is the question that BusinessWeek tries to answer in a new article on the car-sharing club and discovers that the numbers are not in Zipcar's favor. The culprit? High gas prices, of course.

BW says that while Zipcar should pull in $100m this year, the red ink will remain, most likley until next year. The one-price format that Zipcar uses means that the company has to eat the higher fuel costs. CEO Scott Griffith told BW that, "I lose sleep at night knowing I'm paying for gas for 225,000 people."

Competition from the traditional car rental companies who now offer hourly rentals and more car-sharing start-ups are also worrisome spots on Zipcar's future. The whole thing is worth a read.

[Source: BusinessWeek]

Not quite sure what to make of this, but on a day when America's political eye is turned to Pennsylvania, Zipcar would like us all to know that the car-sharing company took a weeklong poll of Zipcar members in Philadelphia and found that Barack Obama was the runaway winner with 59 percent of the "vote." Hillary Clinton came in second with 25 percent and John McCain trailed with 16 percent. Of course, the "votes" were not simple "who do you like best?" questions but instead were taken from registrations of three vehicles: Honda Hillary, Mini Cooper McCain or BMW Barack. The number of hours each of these vehicles was reserved during the week counted towards the final score. Scientific? No. Accurate? No. Fun? Sure, why not. More details after the break.

Carsharing is quite a good thing. I'm actually using one in my own city (although, sadly, not regularly). One barrier to use is the monthly or yearly fee. A company in Paris has decided that this was unfair and has launched a set of carsharing tariffs that excludes montly fees or membership dues. The plan is called Mobizen and it's free to join; costs are €9 for to drive one of their available (located around the city) Mercedes A-Class for less than 200km.

Other options for carsharing in Paris are Caisse Commune, which has prices ranging €12 to €25 for the monthly fee, then €2-3 per hour and €0.21-0.44 per km. Then there's also Okigo, charging €9.90 a month, €4 per hour and €0.35 per km. Finally you can also rent a car for less than a day at Hertz, which offers 4, 8 or 12-hour rentals for €35. There's a demo video after the jump.

The Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, has been touting the idea of an electric or hybrid car sharing program for the "city of lights" for some time now. Trouble was, he had an election to win before he could really claim a mandate to make it happen. Luckily for him and his socialist-leaning ways, the electorate have been quite unhappy in recent days with their right wing, wife dumping, model-marrying president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and to express themselves federally, they voted locally for monsieur Delanoë. Still with me? Good.

The program, dubbed Autolib' (kind of like "free car") after the very successful Paris bicycle sharing scheme, Velib', is similar to one already underway in the City of Lyon. Actually, I once knew a guy from Lyon. Claimed absolutely everything had been invented, explored, or worn by the French first . But I digress...

Unlike the 24 vehicle program in Lyon, Delanoë wants 2000 cars for Paris and those automobiles may be practically identical to those yellow Th!nks City cars you see pictured above (photo taken in Paris by the way) as that company is, reportedly, preparing a bid for the project. The monthly bill for the car sharing scheme, the subject of a lot of chatter on the French site Wikio, may be as much as €250. The electricity to run the cars will be offered free. Bonne chance mes amis! (Good luck, my friends!)

[Source: Wikio / EEMS]

With 110 vehicles - incuding 20 Priuses - now available for rental by the hour, Zipcar started service in Philadelphia this week. Haven't heard of Zipcar? Then you must be new here. Welcome, and here's what you need to know about car sharing, which allows city dwellers to rent a car when they need one and pay an hourly rate (around $10 plus a membership fee) instead of a daily rate.

The two national car sharing companies, Zipcar and Flexcar, merged late last year and the transition hasn't been totally smooth. Still, the 180,000-member service offers over 5,000 vehicles in 50 cities and continues to expand. One special offer for Philadelphians is a lower price on hybrid vehicles - just $6 an hour. I assume this is an introductory rate, but however long it lasts, it's a good deal. Details after the jump.

Most of us here in the U.S. don't get the opportunity to drive around in the UK very often, and that includes myself. Still, I was a bit shocked when I read the press release I've now posted after the break, which announced that the UK has just opened the country's first High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane. So, they're a little ahead in roundabouts, and we're a little ahead in carpooling.

Anyway, the lane runs just 1.7-mile and links the southbound M606 near Bradford to the eastbound M62 towards Leeds. Any vehicle with more than one occupant is welcome to use the lane, as are motorcycles. The lane was added by utilizing the already available shoulder of the roadway. Assuming that this experiment goes well, the Department for Transport has identified 500 more miles of roadway where a hard shoulder could be utilized as an HOV lane.

[Source: Department for Transport]

Erica Barnett, someone with car-sharing experience, writes in The Stranger that the Zipcar takeover merger with Flexcar isn't going quite as smoothly as she'd like. A big Flexcar fan, Barnett says that the more corporate feel of Zipcar has left car sharers in Seattle (Flexcar's home town) paying more for their hourly rentals and, for at least one busy weekend early in the merger, totally without access to the Zipcars. One particular sticking point for Barnett is that Honda Civic hybrids are thrown into Zipcar's "premium" category with BMWs and SUVs. Zipcar told her that cars are made premium based on how much they cost, not on how much the emit. Barnett's not the only one who's frustrated by the changes - she found many who have canceled or will soon cancel their memberships. The fact that Zipcar has yet to turn a profit is driving costs up, while also driving customers away. This could be trouble.

[Source: Erica C. Barnett / The Stranger]

Car sharing companies like ZipCar may soon be getting some new competition from traditional car rental companies. Enterprise Rent-a-Car will be publicly launching a car sharing service next week in St. Louis. The WeCar service actually started in a private phase last month on the Washington University campus. The WeCar program will require a $35 annual membership and rental fees will run $10/hour and $30 for overnight drives. Gas, insurance and up to 200 miles per day are included in the rental fee. Unlike ZipCar, Enterprise is focusing more on business customers for their service although anyone is welcome to sign up. Enterprise already has a deal with Google to provide service at their headquarters campus.

[Source: Wall Street Journal]

We can add the University of New Mexico to the list that also includes MIT, Columbia, Georgetown, Ohio State, Arizona State University, American University, Harvard University, University of Minnesota, University of Toronto, University of North Carolina and The University of Chicago. What list is this? Universities that have partnered with Zipcar to give members of the campus community alternatives to owning a car.

Zipcar, the big car sharing service (also available in many cities), started its UNM operation last week with five cars - three Honda Civics, a Toyota Sienna Minivan, and a MINI Cooper - that available around campus. The Zipcar model allows people to use the cars for $9 an hour/$66 a day as long as they've paid the $35 membership fee (there is a three month grace period for this fee at UNM).

There's more on Zipcar's university partners here.

Related:

• Zipcar-Flexcar merger update
• Forget car sharing, University of Washington to provide electric bikes
• Zipcar now offers seven vehicles for car sharing at UC Santa Cruz
• Zipcar reservations now possible over cell phones

[Source: Zipcar]

The Times reports, the Mayor of Paris is "about to launch" Bertrand Delanöe, a rental system that includes a whopping 2,000 electric cars. The system is based on Automobiles-en-Libre-Service, which allow subscribers to pick up a car, without booking, at dozens of sites and leave them anywhere in the city. The cost of the system is just a few euros per hour which has gained the scheme the nickname Voiturelib or free car. Two electric cars are being considered: the Blue Car project, a three-seater with 156 mile range and Cleanova which is based on the Renault Kangoo van and was developed by the Dassault aviation firm. The electric car rentals will complement the very popular Parisian bike rental, Vélib.

Related:

• Paris (France) to offer cheap green car renting
• Video: The development of alternative cars in France

[Source: Times]

At the end of October, news came that the two biggest car sharing services in the U.S., Flexcar and Zipcar, would merge (and keeping the name Zipcar). In an email update to Flexcar members the other day, Flexcar included a few more details on the merger. Let's take a look at the timeline for the switch:

The first cities to transition over to Zipcar will be San Francisco and Columbus (Ohio). If you are in one of these cities, your welcome packet and new Zipcard should be arriving within a week. In January, Washington, DC, and many of the college towns will make the switch, followed by Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, and San Diego. The final group, Atlanta and Seattle, will transition over in February.

Flexcar says (with good reason) that this merger is a benefit to members, as there will be "more markets, more vehicles, and enhanced technology" available. If you are a Flexcar member and didn't get the email shout-out, you might want to contact Zipcar/Flexcar and make sure they have your correct information on file. Times like these are when errors can happen, and it's good to be proactive and avoid them.

[Source: Flexcar]

I haven't spent a whole lot of time driving in Atlanta, but I've done enough to know that the city's highways can be a true nightmare. Wide roads that feel about 18 lanes across and all of them full of traffic. The crazy speeds some people drive there is enough to cause some folks to do "civil obedience" and drive at the 55 mph speed limit. So, for those of you near Atlanta who are sick of driving and have been wanting to give up driving a car most of the time, Flexcar and MARTA would like to speak with you.

The car-sharing service and the Atlanta area public transportation system have teamed up and are now offering almost 40 Flexcars parked at or near a dozen MARTA stations (there are about 100 Flexcars throughout Atlanta). There is also a new Flexcar driving credit available for MARTA users. If anyone in Atlanta want to chime in on the practicality of the stations where the cars are offered, that'd be nice. From the map above, there seems to be a NE bias to the Flexcar-MARTA locations. Does that work for a lot of people?

[Source: Flexcar]

I suppose the best thing that Thrifty Car Rental's new "Hourly Rentals" deal has going for it is that it sort of bridges the divide between flat-out renting a car for the day and belonging to a carsharing service. Thrifty's new service, which started yesterday at two Manhattan Locations, isn't as cheap per hour as most carshares, but you don't need to pay a membership fee. And, um, the cars aren't parked in neighborhoods but at two Thrifty Car Rental locations. Also, hours are limited (cars are available by the hour between 2 p.m. on Sunday until 10 p.m. on Thursday) and even the name hourly is misleading: the price is $19 for every two hours.

Oh, and don't forget this part: "Base rates do not include taxes, surcharges, underage or additional driver fees or optional purchases like LDW or SLI. Other limitations may apply." Indeed.

Add all that together, and you'll see why the first paragraph of the press release the explains this new service (read it after the break) is the most craptacular bit of hyperbole I've read in a long time. Seriously terrible.

[Source: Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc.]