If you can’t beat them, join them – collaborative consumption

Car rental disruption

Collaborative consumption have already disrupted many different industries – traditional car rental is one of them.

A car used to be the ultimate symbol of freedom and independence but increasingly consumers view ownership as an expense and a burden. Car Sharing has become increasingly popular with its promise of personal convenience and social improvement.

Car sharing clubs give members a smartcard which they use to open the car, eliminating the need to go to an office to collect and return keys.

The global car hire firm Avis Budget has now agreed to buy Zipcar, the world’s biggest car-sharing firm, for $500m. Zipcar was founded in 2000 in Cambridge, Massachussetts, has grown into the world’s biggest car-sharing firm, helped by recent mergers with US rival Flexcar and UK company Streetcar. Zipcar has 760,000 members, who pay an annual joining fee and then are charged by the hour to use its cars.

The group wants to accelerate the growth of Zipcar by putting more cars in more locations. It also plans to adopt some of Zipcar’s technology across the group.

We see car sharing as highly complementary to traditional car rental, with rapid growth potential and representing a scalable opportunity for us as a combined company – Ronald L. Nelson

What will be the next car rental disruption?

Airport car rentals are a big business but the experience is pretty bad all around. Which means it’s time for disruption! Time for the incumbent car rental agencies to get some competition from startups with new ideas, processes, and ways of doing things better!

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If you can’t beat them, join them – collaborative consumption — http://www.torbenrick.eu/t/r/vup

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