Sharing is Car-ing

Car sharing services, which grew steadily during the late aughts, are set to explode in the coming decade. According to research firm Frost & Sullivan, car-sharing membership will top 4.4 million in North America, up from around 500,000 today.

Perhaps this bullish prediction shouldn't come as a surprise. Gas is getting pricier and auto-polyamory has huge perks:

1. It's cheaper. When insurance, gas, car payments, maintenance, and parking are tallied up, the per-hour cost of owning a car often dwarfs that of renting one. To illustrate, an average car owner who drives 12,000 miles a year (at an average of 30 miles per hour) can save $1,834 by making the switch.

2. It's convenient. For city dwellers, for whom car-sharing makes the most practical sense, reserved parking means there's no need to blow half an hour hunting for a spot.

3. It's environmentally friendly(er). After switching, members drove a third less, making up the difference by walking, biking, and taking public transportation. Car-sharing makes users painfully aware of the cost of each trip; and, by allowing them to haul stuff or take long-distance trips, sharing provides the "missing link" that makes public transport a viable option for many people. In any case, fewer miles driven translates to less congestion and emissions, especially since shared cars tend to be green cars.

Then there's the fact that each shared car replaces somewhere between 15 to 20 private ones! That doesn't put a dent in those nasty gridlocks or pollution, since those 15 cars sit idle except when they are used. What it does mean is that fewer cars are built to begin with, reducing emissions from manufacturing. It also means more parking spots, which leads to happier urbanites in the short-term and more room for housing in the long-term.

Car-sharing might even have political knock-on effects: moving people from private cars to shared and public transit could broaden support for public transportation funding.

What might the impact be on automakers? If by 2016 4.4 million folks are zipping around in 70,000 vehicles, and each shared car takes 15 private ones down with it, that works out to around 1 million fewer cars on the road. Automakers sold 10 million cars last year, so this could bite deeply into their sales.

As it stands, car-sharing services are often supported by state and local government. To speed up adoption, the Obama administration could boost them as a part of a wider sustainable transportation strategy. However, given the threat posed by a mushrooming car-sharing market, federal initiatives might be vulnerable to attack by entrenched auto and oil interests. (Hey, they killed the electric car.)

Aside from any political foul play, there are probably limits to the service's growth: to be economically viable, car-sharing relies on the density of cities. People will only use a shared car if it's right around the corner. The more spread out users are, the more cars are needed to keep them within range. This quickly breaks the bank, and makes it unlikely that car sharing will ever conquer this suburban nation.

Photo credit: xxmarcelxx