Zipcar return to different location free#

At a minimum we need Mt Baker Station within the home area, and in my opinion ideally as far south as Othello. I can choose in real-time what is best for each situation.Ĭar2Go’s lack of presence in South and West Seattle has been a prominent criticism, and one that I hope market demand will rectify. to downtown by transit, take a peak-hour bus to Ballard for dinner, then take Car2Go home, saving 30 minutes compared to a 2-seat bus ride. Recently at 10:45pm on a weeknight, I wanted to drive from Pioneer Square to Wallingford but no cars were available between Jackson and Battery west of I-5.Ĭar2Go complements a transit-first lifestyle in ways ZipCar doesn’t. In my experience thus far, Car2Go’s fleet exhibits suprisingly traditional peak flows during the day, toward the CBD in the daytime and out toward urban villages at night. With Car2Go this liberating spontaneity is paired with increased risk the incentive to take one-way trips means there is no guarantee that a car will be available when you need one. If you need a car for a one-way trip right now, Car2Go is unmatched.

If you know in advance when you need a car, Zipcar is usually better. The limitations and benefits of each approach are clear.

Zipcar return to different location free#

Car2Go, by contrast, depends upon a natural equilibrium that provides free (but not guaranteed) parking at any legal street space that is timed for more than 2 hours and lacks peak-hour restrictions). ZipCar’s guaranteed, reserved parking and round-trip requirement ensures reliable car availability and the ability to make reservations months in advance. ZipCar and Car2Go have radically different but exceptionally complementary approaches to fleet management. My own experience backs this up, my average Zipcar rental (2 hours) being 10 times longer than my average Car2Go rental (12 minutes). Zipcar’s round-trip requirement, however, can act as a de facto time penalty that can skew the financial calculation in Car2Go’s favor for longer than the 25-minute window.Īvailability and Parking No Cars Downtown? Zipcar’s 1-hour minimum and round-trip requirement punish short trips, but Zipcar’s 30-minute increment pricing and flatter rate structure optimize it for trips of 1.5-6 hours. After 8 weeks of using Car2Go, I thought I’d write this post both as a comparative analysis of Zipcar and Car2Go and as a chance to give readers the chance to comment on the new carsharing landscape.Ĭar2Go has a much more aggressive rate structure than Zipcar, but its per-minute pricing (38¢/min) gives it a small window (trips of less than 25 minutes) in which it is considerably cheaper than Zipcar.

Alongside Zipcar (née Flexcar), carsharing is now big business in Seattle. When I lived in the U.K., ZipCar was only available in London, so I used WhizzGo instead for my trips to places outside the rail network (such as Malham Cove).Įnter Car2Go. It made quite the splash on the Seattle carsharing scene in December, going from obscurity to near ubiquity in a matter of weeks (see our posts here and here). ZipCar allowed me not to own a car from 2005-2012, and has provided me with a level of urban mobility of which I couldn’t have otherwise dreamed. I’ve used Zipcars in Seattle, Washington DC, Vancouver BC, Boston, and Pasadena, even sleeping overnight in one (a long story involving a Delta Airlines fail and fully booked hotels near National Airport). I’ve been a ZipCar member for 8 years, beginning in Boston in the pre-smartphone era in which I would (gasp!) call in to find available cars.