A Talk with Mark Shaffer, CEO, FunRide

Once the world has fully moved to renewable energy, we’ll all be able to forget about taking measures to reduce our energy consumption. But until that time, we all need to be thinking of ways to cut back.

No one understands this any better than a gentleman I met a few years ago, Mark Shaffer. Mark is the CEO of FunRide, a car-sharing organization in San Luis Obispo, CA, with a unique vision for the future.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the concept of car-sharing is new to some readers. The idea is simple–and novel. A pool of cars is distributed at various locations in a limited, normally densely populated region—say Boston or Washington DC—and made available to members. For an annual membership and a per-day rate, members go online, look at real-time maps showing vehicle locations, book a reservation, walk to the location, open the car with a special key-chain fob, do their driving, and return the car. Zipcar is the largest car-sharing operation in the country—and has certainly proven that the business model can work.

So what is FunRide’s twist? Eco-friendly cars, in a neighborhood whose demographics suggest an extremely high value on environmental stewardship. I spoke with Mark earlier today.

Craig Shields: Mark, thanks for taking time with me; good to speak with you again.

Mark Shaffer: Happy to. I take all opportunities to get the work out there.

CS: Good for you. Let’s start at the beginning. How did this whole thing get started?

MS: A few years ago, I was sitting in a meeting at the Central Coast Clean Cities Coalition and it came to me. The concept serves so many needs simultaneously. FunRide provides on-demand transportation, in a fun and eco-friendly way—and it gives people the opportunity to try alternative-fuelled cars, giving them an experience that they’ll need before they actually buy one.

CS: So the special idea is eco-friendly cars. Tell me about that please.

MS: Until the supply of pure electric vehicles increases, we have a variety of cars based on a range of different technologies. We have a ZENN neighborhood electric vehicle, a bio-diesel Jetta, a natural gas Honda Civic, and an E85 Ford Ranger. We also have a Honda Insight hybrid, but ideally I’d like to have nothing that runs on gasoline at all.

CS: How are you promoting the organization?

MS: We have a range of fairly traditional advertising and markerting tools we’ve implemented: TV, radio, listings in directories, appearances on talk radio.

CS: You may recall that my background was marketing. You know what I recommend? PR. I would think that the newsworthiness of FunRide is so extreme that a clever PR practitioner could get you enormous quantities of free publicity.

MS: Thanks. Good point.

CS: What do you see as the major market segments for FunRide?

MS: It’s interesting because there are so many. Out of town guests, workers who take public transportation or carpools to work and need to run errands, universities offering vehicles to students, or people who simply don’t want a second car. The recession has had a positive effect on us, ironically, in that people are thinking hard: Do I really need the second car? For $30 a year, they can get the car only when they need to.

CS: Where are you in the whole process at this point?

MS: This is coming together right now. By the end of next week, we’ll be rolling: We’ll have all the cars, the pods, the signs, and the network online.

CS: Fantastic. Best of luck to you. I certainly hope that you get some traffic from this blog. Keep up the good work.

PS: Here’s a graphical depiction or “infographic” of the history of renewable energy.