Matt Yglesias

38 Responses to “Share and Share Alike”

1. Tom Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 4:50 pm

   I wish Ryan was right about EV fleets, but I’m afraid charge times make it impractical. The Chevy Volt is looking at a 40 mile range on a 6 hour charge. That’s just not practical for a vehicle that’s utilized as heavily as a shared car.

2. DTM Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

   Incidentally, wireless technology has made vehicle-sharing dramatically more efficient and convenient, and the industry should continue to benefit from ever-better wireless technology penetration (e.g., the more people with Internet available on their phones, the better for vehicle-sharing services, since that makes it easier for people to find vehicles while on the go). Meanwhile, it is the sort of industry where the product gets better and better the more people who use it (e.g., more users means more vehicles means more pickup locations for those vehicles).

3. DTM Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 5:03 pm

   Tom,

   But plug-in hybrids might work fine. Indeed, Zipcar is already using hybrids, and even if just the first user or two is running all-electric with a plug-in hybrid, the savings could be passed along to all users (e.g., Zipcar already includes gas in the membership fees).

4. Tom Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 5:16 pm

   DTM: That’s a good point. You’d have to crunch the numbers, of course, to see if that first 40 miles or so of grid-sourced locomotion per day could justify the cost of building the charging infrastructure. It might. But I doubt it’d be a dramatic win. Carsharing is going to be at least partially tethered to gasoline for the foreseeable future.

   And that’s okay! We shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Hydrocarbons are an extremely useful fuel, and we should accept that we’re going to be stuck with them for long-range applications for the foreseeable future. If those applications can be made efficient, then so much the better. Carsharing certainly fits the bill. If we can eventually make biofuels that are carbon negative, then that’ll be a fine use for them.

   Electrification is going to be most appropriate for short-range applications and ones where a lot of energy is lost to engine idling. There’s just no getting around that.

5. DTM Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 5:32 pm

   Tom,

   Indeed, I agree Zipcar et al will likely be sticking to at least hybrids for quite a while (unless/until batteries get much better and charging locations become nearly as common as gas stations), because their model requires people being able to use the cars pretty much as they see fit as long as they are willing to pay for the time (which is why, for example, each Zipcar comes with a gas card, and the member is just responsible for making sure the car is refueled, but otherwise can use as much fuel as they want).

   But in favor of plug-in hybrids, one of the things car-sharing does is distribute equipment costs in a much more efficient way. That typically does mean that car-sharing services can afford to pay more up front for their cars if that means operating efficiencies on the back end. So, that is part of why they have been early adopters of hybrids (the battery-cost versus fuel-efficiency equation is unusually in their favor), and to the extent plug-in hybrids are economically viable at all, I expect car-sharing services to adopt those quickly too for basically the same reason (even adding the sunk costs of electrifying the relevant parking spots to the equipment costs).

6. Eric Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 5:50 pm

   “…it will be much easier to provide juice to a modest number of shared depots than to every single parking space in a city.”

   Well, we currently don’t provide gasoline to every single parking space in a city, so this seems irrelevant.

7. RoboticGhost Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 5:53 pm

   I find the whole prospect of migrating from liquid fuels to an electric car system, even at a rationed pace, incredibly daunting. The power grid is in pretty lousy shape as it is, factor in the added infrastructure needed to haul us all around, and you’re looking at a very, very expensive upgrade to build and maintain.

   Obviously, people are going to continue to go places while sitting down, and car sharing will be a part of that. Its a great today solution for a limited segment of the population with the means and locale to take advantage of Zipcar. But I highly doubt it can sustain the sort of living arrangements Americans have come to favor. Its a great idea for places where car trips are, or can be, rare.

   I guess my greater point is that infrastructure is going to change, and for the first time in a long time, that change will drive lifestyles rather than the other way around. Oil is magical stuff and there simply isn’t any way to replace liquid fuels with other kinds of power on a one to one ratio with the same systemic efficiencies. Even car sharing entails a degree of unpredictability that isn’t the rule today. I bet the idea of car sharing is unthinkable to most Americans.

8. RoboticGhost Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

   Well, we currently don’t provide gasoline to every single parking space in a city, so this seems irrelevant.

   Charging batteries, even supercool science fiction ones that are coming down the pike, takes a good deal longer to do than it does to dump some gas in a tank. You might see some sort of battery swap station or something replace the gas station at some point in the future. I have no idea how practical that would be in reality, but its the only possible remote power solution I can think of that doesn’t entail having charging stations to just about everywhere (home, office, mall, church, bank, etc…).

9. Robert Fiore Says:
   August 20th, 2008 at 7:00 pm

   I make this comment every so often when this subject comes up: The successor to the privately owned automobile is going to be automated vehicles on automated roads, not trains or trolleys.

10. DTM Says:
    August 20th, 2008 at 7:55 pm

    RoboticGhost,

    Car-sharing doesn’t have to be such an alien experience–in fact in the limit, it is just like pulling out your keys, walking to your garage, and getting in your own car. As you note, there is some systematic uncertainty, but that is part of what wireless technology can address (e.g., it can help make sure a car is waiting for you once you formulate the intent to use it). Similarly, as I noted above, the more users, the more cars in close proximity to any given user, so the closer to that limit it approaches.

    But there are some travel applications where car-sharing doesn’t work so well, most notably commuting (because everyone would want to use the cars at the same time). Of course car-pooling is an alternate car-sharing solution to that problem, and you could potentially combine the approaches in some cases. But generally, it is true that car-sharing works best where public transit can take most of the commuting load, and to that extent I agree with your point about infrastructure.

11. JonF Says:
    August 20th, 2008 at 8:00 pm

    Re: I have no idea how practical that would be in reality, but its the only possible remote power solution I can think of that doesn’t entail having charging stations to just about everywhere (home, office, mall, church, bank, etc…).

    Why wouldn’t you just have a charging station at home and charge the car overnight? I assume hybrid technology would still be in place, that cars would not be purely electric. You’d use the electric function for short, daily tripping and the fuel technology for long road-tripping.

12. RoboticGhost Says:
    August 20th, 2008 at 8:26 pm

    DTM –

    A good wireless app for car sharing would sure make it more palatable for sure. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stood there with my iPhone in hand while buses, GPS equipped natch, whiz by while I wonder where mine is and why i can’t find out instantly yet. Useful wireless Internet has the potential to be rather transformative. Here I am typing this on a bench by the river while the latest NPR Food podcast natters away in the background for instance. I can very well see how a solid wireless doodad could make car sharing work in a lot of areas. Tengenital evidence.

13. DTM Says:
    August 20th, 2008 at 9:17 pm

    Roboticghost,

    Wireless has already transformed things on the company’s side–Zipcar communicates with its cars wirelessly, allowing the company to tell the car which Zipcard (your electronic key) to accept once you have made a reservation, and in turn the car can upload mileage and usage data to the company. The company can even disable the car wirelessly in the event of theft. All of that is what has made it possible for the process to be so decentralized and thus convenient.

    As you note, though, the next big step would be for people to easily find and reserve cars while on the go. And since you can do that online already, all you need is workable wireless Internet–and that is a penetration issue at this point, since the technology already exists.

14. Liber-bot Says:
    August 20th, 2008 at 10:15 pm

    gzzzt…zzzsssharing cars is irrational and suszpiziously communist gzzztt bzzt.

15. joe from Lowell Says:
    August 20th, 2008 at 10:17 pm

    You might see some sort of battery swap station or something replace the gas station at some point in the future.

    Three words: blue rhino propane.

    Swapping out energy units. Happens all the time. They pretty up the cylinders when they fill them up for resale.

16. Ella in NM Says:
    August 20th, 2008 at 10:21 pm

    I hate to inform you people, but anyone who seeks to do this “sharing” stuff is basically a communist in the eyes of the RightWingNUTS.

17. Tom Says:
    August 21st, 2008 at 12:57 am

    Not to be *too* much of a Zipcar booster, but it’s probably worth pointing out that you can already make reservations on-the-go through their phone interface, which is really quite good.

18. Matt McIrvin Says:
    August 21st, 2008 at 1:21 am

    I remember seeing old discussions of electric cars from about 40 years ago, and they always seemed to have some artist’s impression of a battery-swap station manned by happy attendants in crisp uniforms, hauling these things out from under the hoods of big old electric Detroit finmobiles. The idea doesn’t seem as popular these days.

19. BruceMcF Says:
    August 21st, 2008 at 6:45 am

    One place where it would seem to be well worthwhile getting plug stations at every parking place is public transit park-and-ride lots.

    Of course, in some cases that will be complementary to a car-share system, with the electric (or PHEV) park-and-ride vehicle for getting around the home stomping grounds, and the shared car used for occasional driving needs when at the destination side of the trip.

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