This postoriginally appearedon TheCityFix.com.

Zipcar’s $500 millionAvis-Budget Group的收购上周三宣布的是汽车共享行业的分水岭。这对汽车共享意味着什么？

Barely 10 years ago, no one knew whether car sharing could even work in North America, let alone become a staple of trendy and pragmatic urban living. Yet todayZipcar, plus dozens of innovative start-ups likeCity CarShare,PhillyCarShare,I-Go， 和communauto, have grown into robust community assets in every major U.S. and Canadian city.

汽车共享对我们在城市的生活方式留下了不可磨灭的印记。从蒙特利尔到旧金山的许多城市社区中，会员资格超过五分之一的成年人。北美的每辆共享车辆都被证明可以替换9到13辆私人汽车，并将驾驶平均减少44％ - 随着成员的储蓄和选择走路，骑自行车和进行公共交通。

Zipcarhas been at the forefront of this transformation. Launching in Cambridge, Mass., with a handful of lime-green Volkswagen Beetles, the feisty start-up pioneered early innovation, catalyzed massive scale-up around the world, and helped inspire a whole movement toward shared access to everything from houses to bicycles to parking spaces—and even pets.鉴于汽车共享的反文化成功，我们应该如何通过汽车行业的主要收购Zipcar收购？Zipcar是由“大家伙”购买的汽车共享成功的最大成功，还是在成年公司和主流文化的“现实世界”中的最终失败？与AVIS的协同作用会导致改变游戏规则的创新，这是推动Zipcar趋势设定明星的类型 - 还是拼写了汽车共享的结局？

Impact of Acquisition

事实是，Zipcar很久以前就脱离了创新踏板，赞成其规模和难以捉摸的盈利能力。尽管Zipcar在利润率上进行了创新 - 最近推出了Moving Vans，一种新的移动应用程序和一些电动汽车，但不再是改变世界的榜样，它定义了“可能是什么”的最前沿。

在发展中国家共享的汽车

embarqWRI可持续运输中心一直在研究由大众汽车赞助的项目“发展中国家的汽车共享”的可行性。2012年，研究小组对全球数十名运营商，移动专家和政策制定者进行了专家访谈。该小组最近在印度中国和班加罗尔的杭州和班加罗尔进行了潜在的和现有的汽车共享用户。该项目旨在回答以下问题：

  • 发展中国家汽车共享行业的现状是什么？

  • 潜在的市场是什么？

  • What are the main barriers and opportunities to implementation?

  • How should car sharing systems be designed?

  • What might be the societal and environmental impacts?

  • 与政策有什么意义？

总结调查结果的最终报告将于2013年晚些时候发布。

Although Zipcar’s 760,000 members account impressively for nearly half of global car-sharing members, the company has never turned an annual profit since its founding in 2000. After a successful IPO in April 2011 – another watershed moment – Zipcar’s stock initially rose to $31.50, but tumbled after continued losses, closing at just $8.24 before the Avis announcement. Zipcar had only two month’s operating cash on hand as of its September 2012 close.

Rather than curtail innovation, the Avis acquisition might provide a soft landing that allows Zipcar to think big again. The Avis deal should offer improved convenience to Zipcar members, who will gain access to Avis’s massive fleet on weekends, when Zipcar is usually short of cars and Avis short on customers. And Zipcar should enjoy significant savings on insurance and fleet purchases, altogether promising better financial sustainability.

Zipcarwill continue, becoming the largest and latest brand owned by Big Rental – alongside Hertz Connect, DriveNow (Sixt), and WeCar and PhillyCarShare (both Enterprise). The establishment’s foray into car sharing is a response to its successful mainstreaming – and a sign that large-scale innovation has moved on.

The Real Big News

但是，汽车共享中最激动人心的消息不是在报纸上。它在街上。社会企业家正在通过单向服务，自发访问（无保留）等方式重新定义我们如何看待汽车以及如何共享汽车。两项进步将彻底改变汽车共享：对等国家的点对点服务和创新。

点对点服务

Peer-to-peer (P2P) services allow individuals to share their personal cars directly with others. Imagine convenient, hourly access to virtually every car parked on-street. Most cars sit idle 95 percent of the time. P2P allows us to access that vast unused capacity and enables car owners to earn money by driving less – a win for the environment. P2P also eliminates the huge capital required for car-sharing fleet expansion, enabling scale-up like never before.

The英国的鞭子例如，在短短的两年内增长到19,000辆，几乎使Zipcar的全球舰队翻了一番，只有一小部分资本。旧金山是创新的温床，在2012年举办了五家P2P初创企业。接力成立于2010年，已经为13个美国城市提供了数十个汽车型号，通常低于Zipcar和传统租金。创新的未来绝对不是公司。它是协作的，参与的和共同创建的。

Developing Countries

Social entrepreneurs are also paving the way in Asia, Africa, and Latin America – home to 74 percent of the world’s urban population but only 4.5 percent of its car-sharing members. Cities of India and China alone are expected to add 700 million new residents by 2030, most aspiring to join the burgeoning middle class. Will these cities sprawl with polluting cars?

相反，想象一下，如果一家人的第一辆车成为与邻居共享的汽车。想象一下，在所有权变得无处不在之前，汽车共享是否会出现流行。汽车共享可以帮助城市保持紧凑和步行，并建立可持续的流动文化。

New start-ups have launched recently in São Paulo, Beijing, Hangzhou, Istanbul, and Mexico City. They are experimenting to serve diverse cultures and address unique challenges of developing countries – like vehicle restrictions in Beijing, three-hour traffic jams in São Paulo, and paltry on-street parking in Mumbai. They are educating governments, establishing an industry of suppliers, and building new markets.

These are the big stories of car sharing.

Avis’s acquisition might very well enable Zipcar to return to greater innovation, scale, and quality. Let us hope it does. Regardless, entrepreneurs are redefining our relationship with the car, on the streets cities ranging from San Francisco to São Paulo. This is the enduring success of car sharing.

克莱顿巷is COO ofembarqWRI可持续运输中心，并帮助领导WRI的全球城市倡议，专注于能源，水和运输。2002年，克莱顿（Clayton）在费城共同创立了费城（Phillycarshare）。