Funride – Car Sharing with a Unique Twist

What do you know about car sharing? You know – the idea that your life circumstances may require you to have access to a car as needed, yet they may make it supremely impractical to own one. 

Take a moment and add up the annual cost of your car: the payments, the depreciation, the maintenance, the insurance – plus the aggravation of parking – and then compare that cost to the actual number of hours per year you actually need the car.  Might you be better off to rent one online on an as-needed basis, pick it up from any of hundreds of convenient local parking spaces, and later drop it off essentially wherever you want — rather than owning a car — and paying for it — 24 hours a day, 365 days a year?

Check out the concept of car-sharing. Do you find it shocking? Those who study a large and growing car-sharing market certainly don’t. Researchers Frost and Sullivan predict 9 million users sharing 150,000 vehicles in Europe and North America by 2016 — a 500% growth over the next five years.

Now, if you’re open to the concept generally, and you want the best, greenest, coolest incarnation of this idea, check out Funride — an organization I’ve known for several years. I have the highest respect for the folks there – and for what they’ve accomplished as the world’s first 100% alternative-fueled fleet in car sharing. Yesterday, I interviewed Pat Mahan – Funride’s Director of Operations down at Ventura TV Channel 6. Here are a few stills. The video will be up soon.

I just showed my young daughter this post before I published it. “My goodness that guy’s big!” she cried. “I hope you didn’t say anything to make him mad.”

“No,” I assured her. “I was a perfect gentleman — and so was he.”