Flexcar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Flexcar | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Type | Corporation |
| Founded | 2000 |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington |
| Key people | Mark Norman, CEO J.J. Millard, CFO |
| Industry | Automotive |
| Website | www.flexcar.com |
Flexcar was a for-profit car sharing company, the oldest and second-largest in the United States behind Boston-based Zipcar, which it merged with in late 2007. This article discusses Flexcar's operations prior to the merger; Flexcar operations in most of its markets are (as of early 2008) being converted to Zipcar operations.
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[edit] Overview
Flexcar can date its origins to March 1998, when its Portland, Oregon office was founded as a separate company (Car Sharing Portland) by David Brook; Flexcar itself was founded in January 2000 in Seattle, Washington as a public-private partnership with King County Metro. Flexcar is also present in Los Angeles; Gainesville; San Diego; Rochester; Atlanta; Pittsburgh; Tempe, Arizona (serving Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University); San Francisco; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Washington, D.C. and Columbus, Ohio, and, to varying degrees, in their suburbs. In addition, Flexcar is partnered with the non-profit I-GO carsharing service in Chicago.
Flexcar members choose a rate plan and pay an annual fee. The fees cover gasoline, insurance, maintenance, and cleaning. The vehicles are mostly late-model sedans, with other types, such as light trucks, hybrids, convertibles, and minivans, also available. Each vehicle has a home location, a reserved space either in a parking lot or on a street, typically in a highly-populated urban neighborhood (as well as, in some markets, on college or university campuses). Members reserve a car by web or telephone and use a key card to access the vehicle. The reservation must specify the pick up and return time, so others can schedule the vehicle. Vehicles are returned to their home location.
The company targets people who make only occasional use of a vehicle as well as people who would like occasional access to a vehicle of a different type than they use day-to-day. Flexcar claims that the service should be economically beneficial to anyone whose car would normally be away from their home about 15 hours a week, and do not need a car for their daily commute to work.
In several of its cities, the company has formed a public-private partnership with a local public transit entity. For example, in Seattle they are partnered with King County Metro Transit, which operates the area's buses. The company's advertising materials there say, "Ride Metro when you don't need a car. Use Flexcar when you do."
[edit] History
In 2003, Flexcar became the first company in the United States to become completely carbon neutral. By developing a partnership with American Forests, Flexcar ensures that enough trees are planted every year to offset the exhaust from its fleet of shared vehicles.
In August 2005, Revolution LLC, the holding company owned by Steve Case, founder of America Online, purchased a 60% holding interest in Flexcar. The company announced that this investment will lead to a rapid expansion of their operations. They have expanded to San Francisco, where they face competition from the homegrown and rather large nonprofit City Carshare and Zipcar, which has also expanded into San Francisco.
In January 2007, Flexcar notified the member base of dramatic changes in the billing structure of their hourly rental. Doing away with their flat fee for set hour and unlimited mileage rates, they announced the formation of a "Variable Pricing" plan, which calculates cost on peak and non-peak hours with mileage limited to 150 miles per day. Members were notified on the organization's website and by letter that, "Variable pricing provides two benefits. Members with flexible schedules can now save money by reserving the car during its 'off-peak' time, in this case, on the weekend. Because some members will shift their trips to 'off-peak' times, the car’s availability should also improve during its 'peak' times as well."
On October 30, 2007, Flexcar executives announced a merger with car-sharing rival Zipcar. The merger would consolidate the operations of the two corporations. Executives from both companies, in the announcement of the merger, stated that the Flexcar headquarters in Seattle would be closed, possibly resulting in the loss of jobs as operations transferred to Zipcar's headquarters in Boston.[1].
[edit] Seattle
Flexcar has 15,000 members in Seattle, over 3% of that city's population. It has proven popular among those who live in downtown Seattle or the nearby densely populated Capitol Hill and First Hill.
The company has also started an initiative to convince Downtown Seattle employers to join their program as business members rather than maintaining their own car fleets. Other market segments include placing vehicles at transit stations to provide "last mile" connectivity between transit and suburban office locations and, most recently, providing subsidized vehicle access as part of low-income "jobs access" programs.
[edit] Portland
In April 2001, Flexcar became the first car-sharing company in the U.S. to expand to a second city by acquiring CarSharing Portland in Portland. At the time, Flexcar's customer base in Seattle included over 1300 members sharing 40 cars. Carsharing Portland, which began business in March 1998, had at the time of its acquisition over 500 members with 25 vehicles in and around downtown Portland.
The most recent statistics provided by Flexcar's website shows that the service in Portland has grown to include over 130 vehicles, including the Pearl District, Old Town Chinatown; close-in eastside neighborhoods such as the Lloyd District, Hawthorne, and Brooklyn; and downtown Vancouver, Washington.
[edit] See also
- Carsharing
- List of carsharing operators
- Zipcar
- Transportation in Seattle
- Transportation in Portland
- Transportation in Los Angeles
- I-GO
[edit] References
- "Iacocca, Case sign on with Flexcar", Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2005-08-31. Retrieved on 2005-12-22.
- "Seattle's Flexcar merges with rival Zipcar", Seattle Times, 2007-10-30. Retrieved on 2007-10-31.
