Zipcar's future might just be black. If the company's latest statement turns out to be accurate, then the car sharing service's first profitable quarter ever might be coming in the third quarter of this year. Then, in early 2010, the company plans to go public with an IPO. If the numbers found on Auto Observer hold up - revenues for 2009 should be $120 million, and then $1 billion within the next ten years - then someone call up that Mad Kramer guy.

The last time the company had any news that was this huge, it was either in late 2007 when they merged with FlexCar or earlier this week when the new door-unlocking iPhone app was revealed, depending on who you ask.

[Source: Auto Observer]

If you're not an Apple fanboy who's been hitting F5 repeatedly over on Engadget today, here's a green car tie-in from the big WWDC that's just wrapping up: your iPhone will soon be able to unlock the doors of your Zipcar rental vehicle. Yes, your phone can now tell your car what to do. It's only a matter of time before Dr. Horrible's remote control app becomes a reality.

Zipcar's Luke Schneider explained to the WWDC crowd that the new Zipcar app allows you to find a nearby and available car and reserve it for you. The app shows prices and we can see an "alerts" tab for, presumably, alerts. More details are not yet available, but you can find two more pictures after the jump and the rest of the Apple/iPhone news here.

[Source: Engadget]

It shouldn't come as a major surprise that car sharing services like Zipcar are reporting increased membership rates and demand for short-term rental vehicles in these tough economic times. It's also to be expected that as more and more people rely on these services, new car purchases will be reduced somewhat.

Still, services like Zipcar need to keep a current fleet of vehicles for their members to use, and it's best to have the wheels that people want. In an interview with Erin Burnett from CNBC's Squawk Box, Zipcar Chairman and CEO Scott Griffith had some not-so-flattering things to say about General Motors and Chrysler. According to Griffith:

We have never bought a GM or Chrysler product. What we do is we survey our members, we ask them what kind of car do they want to drive. And when we hear back what they want to drive, if we don't have it, we consider it and look at it. We have never had a request for a GM product. That's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. Out of 300,000 users that we survey every six months, I have never had a request.

Ouch. We don't necessarily think that's the "most damning" thing we've ever heard about General Motors or Chrysler – two automakers that recently filed for bankruptcy – but that's certainly not good news to either of these American automakers. Make the jump to watch the video.

[Source: The Business Insider]

Zipcar has unveiled a new service that makes carsharing easier to use for government and fleet operators. FastFleet is being rolled out in Washington, D.C. and differs from Zipcar in one big way: clients supply their own vehicles. FastFleet simply allows fleet operators to use Zipcar's wireless, in-vehicle access technology. This means that the fleets don't need to be kept in a central location and users can use their Internet-connected devices to find out when and where a vehicle is available. Fleet operators can also use the "FastFleet administration console" to check out what's up with their vehicles. Zipcar says that the District of Columbia has saved about $300,000 during the four-month trial period and is on track to save over $1 million in the first year.

If nothing else, FastFleet fits in very well with Philip Gott's idea of mobility we explored in depth recently.

[Source: Zipcar]

Menlo Park. Los Angeles. Chicago. Washington, DC. New York. London. These cities share at least one thing in common: they are all home to current or future Telsa Motors stores. Tesla officially announced today that London will be the location of its first official EU regional sales and service center. Two more stores are planned for Münich and Monaco. All three are on schedule to open sometime in 2009. Unlike the nondescript Chicago store location, the London digs have an interesting car history. Until it went bust last fall, the building was used by the Segrave Supercar Club (sort of a ZipCar for the rich). Tesla-haters, feel free to make your comments about the, ahem, karma of the location now.

Tesla says they're planning on starting European deliveries of the Roadster in late June and that, eventually, just as many Tesla vehicles will be sold on one side of the Atlantic as the other.


[Source: Tesla]

Two pieces of good news for green car fans in Ann Arbor, Michigan. First, Mercedes-Benz says it it looking to hire 223 workers at a new research and development center for hybrid technologies there. Don't everyone put an applications in right away, because these jobs will be phased in over 10 years. As MLive points out, Ann Arbor is slowly getting a green car reputation - see also: Sakti3 and Th!nk - and the new hybrid center is just the latest piece in an alternative propulsion puzzle. The state, through the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, will likely approve tax credits for Mercedes and its 65,000 square foot center. Official name: the Mercedes-Benz Engineering Center for Powertrains USA.

The other bit of green car news is that Zipcar, which has been operating in Ann Arbor since 2006, is expanding from the U of M campus to downtown. Now, any local resident can rent one of four Toyota Matrix or two Scion xD vehicles by the hour from a centrally-located parking garage. More details after the jump.

[Source: Zipcar, MLive]
Photo by zzellers. Licensed under Creative Commons license 2.0.

The city of San Francisco took another step into electric vehicle territory by installing "Smartlet" electric vehicle charging stations outside of City Hall today. The Smartlets are on loan from Coulomb Technologies and will be used to charge up cars from ZipCar, City CarShare and "a plug-in car in the City of San Francisco municipal fleet." Mayor Gavin Newsom made the announcement this morning.

Mayor Newsom, one of the few to actually own an EV1 back in the day, also wrote a post for Gas2 in which he says that he believes battery electric vehicles - not hybrids and he did not mention hydrogen - "are the quantum leap we need to make."

One thing about this caught my eye. A ZipCar with a plug? Huh? The San Francisco ZipCar site doesn't list any vehicles that can get juice from the grid, so I called the San Francisco ZipCar office. They told me that they have just one plug-in model, specifically designated for city hall, which is a converted PHEV Prius.

Thanks to Natasha M. for the tip!

UPDATE: We just found a press release announcing ZipCar's PHEV program. It's pasted after the jump.


[Source: Gas2.org]

The latest city to jump on the carsharing band wagon is Seattle. The city has signed up with ZipCar to provide on-demand short term car rentals in the hopes that more of the city's 10,500 employees (Seattle has 10,500 employees?) will access the cars when needed for city business. Sixty ZipCars will be set up at garages and on-street parking spots within 10 blocks of city hall. Employees can use the cars for either city business or personal use with the usual setup of gas, insurance and maintenance being covered.

[Source: ZipCar]

The Ohio State University like a few alt-fuel cars: the Buckeye Bullet 2, hydrogen-powered golf carts and Zipcar/Flexcar. Well, scratch that last one. OSU has decided to give the campus car-sharing contract to Connect by Hertz instead of Zipcar. The exact reason for the switch was not disclosed, with OSU saying only that Zipcar was "not the successful bidder." The Columbus Dispatch reports that Zipcar, with at first 20 but then seven vehicles on campus, did not provide enough cars to suit employee needs. OSU did not provide details on how Connect will work at OSU, but in other places, Hertz offers rate plans that range from $50 a year to $125 per month (depending on the plan) that includes gas, insurance and maintenance. Then you have hourly rental fees that start at $8.50. The Dispatch says that Hertz will have a dozen cars on campus and charge between $9 and $11 an hour for them. OSU uses car-sharing in an attempt to reduce the number of state vehicles - most of which sit unused during the day - needed on campus. Thanks to a buckeye for the tip!

[Source: Ohio State University, Columbus Dispatch]

Zipcar has announced an agreement with the city of Atlanta to provide car-sharing memberships to its employees. However, the announcement doesn't stop there: Zipcar also joined Midtown Transportation Solutions (MTS) and the Downtown Transportation Management Association (DTMA) to provide free application fees for Atlanta-based companies or organizations that join Zipcar before the end of the year. The agreement is sponsored by the Keneda Foundation, which covers the $25 application fee for Atlanta city employees. These employees which then will have weekday access to vehicles at $8.25 per hour; plus an option to rent a car for $49 from 7 am to 7 pm or $60 for a 24-hour period. The partnership aims to get more Atlanta employees to commute using alternative transportation by giving them the option to rent a car for a short period if time if they need it during the day. Full press release after the jump.

[Source: Zipcar]