Hi!

I live in Montreal, Quebec and I am a member of Communauto (www.communauto.com), a local non-profit car-sharing service (and north america's oldest service of this kind, BTW). There are over 4700 Communauto members, and we share over 200 Toyota Echos here.

I just discovered ZipCar, and I am pleased to see that the concept is catching on! Keep up the good work!

My question : here, in Montreal, I can use an Echo for 10 consecutive hours, drive for 40 kilometers and pay only CAD$12 (about 9 US dollars) for it, plus applicable taxes and 25¢ CAD per additional km. Using an Echo for a full 24 hr day would cost me CAD$15 plus 15¢ per km. This of course includes gas, insurance and maintenance. I looked at ZipCar's prices to try to compare car costs and got into a bit of a sticker shock; ZipCars are nicer VWs and Minis with interesting security technology installed, but they cost up to 4-5 times as much to use as Communauto's cars!!!

Am I reading the website's info wrong? Or is it so much more expensive to own a car in Boston/NYC than it is in Montreal?

-- Anonymous, August 31, 2003

Answers

M. Trudeau, I grew up just south of the border in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and as I recall, it always was considerably more expensive to own, insure, and operate a vehicle in the U.S. than in Canada. Keep in mind that Boston's Population swells by over a quarter of a million every September due to its huge student population, and while most are too young to join Zipcar, we still get a lot of graduate students, half of which fall into the category of highest insurance premiums (males under 25). Zipcar has to cover this, as well as pay for numerous other urban expenses which are very high in Boston (a parking space alone can run as much as $500/month in some neighborhoods).

-- Anonymous, September 02, 2003

As far as I can tell, of all of the North American car services, Zipcar offers the nicest cars, best variety, best reservation system, and has the highest prices.

Part of this might have to do with the choice of for-profit vs. non-profit. It is possible that non-profits are able to secure more free or low cost parking spaces. At least one non-profit uses only donated used cars. Zipcars are always new.

Insurance is always high in the USA, because we like to sue each other a lot here. Drivers under age 25 normally pay more for to drive a car - that's no good excuse to raise rates for everyone.

Here's a grid of prices for assorted services: http://www.obviously.com/temp/Price_Compare.html But direct comparisons are difficult, because of the complexity of the various rate structures. Zipcar & Flexcar have the least simple rates.

-- Anonymous, September 02, 2003

The chart has some interesting info for camparison, but the columns are inadequately labeled ($, Fee, etc.) and I can only assume that the Canadian rates are in Canadian dollars and per kilometer, as nothing states that (BTW, Montreal is in Quebec).

-- Anonymous, September 03, 2003