Comments on P-I Gets It Wrong on Carsharing

Actually, I think some people do choose the car rental route. We have two busy kids and two jobs and one car. Several years ago we made the decision to not replace a second car. We tried both Flexcar and renting on the very few days a year we need two cars. Renting was much cheaper.

Now I know we are not ideologically pure for even owning a car, but most people I know who are middle aged with kids have two cars. And if you have two cars, you drive two cars, all of the time. It is always easier. We bike and bus to work regularly, but we still have to take the kids to school, basketball practice, ballet, etc.

Why do you care so much as long as carsharing folks don't pay the tax?

I was thrilled when Flexcar came into being, but then I did the math and discovered Flexcar didn't make economic sense for me. Renting was cheaper.

My wife and I were able to make do with one car and FlexCar (and bikes and buses) for a few years. Saved thousands of dollars. But then she needed a truck for work; then we had one child, then two. So we have two cars, pay insurance on both, and so the hourly "insurance included" rate for FlexCar doesn't pencil out for us.

I'd love to have one car instead of two, but the car seat requirement (a good one) makes multi-modal FlexCar-ing tricky.

The PI may have made one minor mis-statement but they have the overall point right.

Renting is cheaper if you want to go hiking, skiing etc. Those are things lots of car-less people like myself want to do sometimes.

Any renting that helps people stay car free is just as socially useful as car share and shouldn't be subject to a special tax aimed at tourists. That said, driving is destructive regardless of who owns the car

Erica, you know those huge white and orange U-Haul pickup trucks and vans you see everywhere on the weekends? The ones that say "Rent me! $19.95 Per Day!"

Those? I assure you they exist.

You should do some reporting on this subject, beyond the marketing materials Flexcar gave you. All I know is, calling an hourly rental car a "car share" makes me want to barf.

I walk to work, have no kids, and live in a neighborhood where I can get most of what I need without a car. Flexcar has worked really well for me...but I definitely see how it would be a poor choice for people in other situations. The point, though, is that the PI editorial was really sloppy. Getting the basic facts wrong about the fees, gas, and insurance in an editorial about the costs of carsharing is really bad.

Spot on, ECB.

When I first started carsharing, I used it for holidays to the family get-togethers. When I told my aunts about Flexcar, they looked at me like I just said I was a Communist or something.

The number one problem with my FlexCar membership is that I would use it all the time. In the end, it was way too expensive. Now I save up all of my major errands and rent a car once every few months. Renting a car for a day is much cheaper than renting a FlexCar for a day, even if when renting one of those FlexCars that only charge for 6 hours when you take it for 24.

True about daily rentals. When I need a car for a whole day I generally do use Flexcar (because I can get sportier cars for comparable to what a rental agency would charge for a similar car plus insurance, which I don't have otherwise) but I can definitely see renting a car to go hiking, out of town, etc. What I was talking about was getting a daily rental to do a few "local errands," in the P-I's words.

True about daily rentals. When I need a car for a whole day I generally do use Flexcar (because I can get sportier cars for comparable to what a rental agency would charge for a similar car plus insurance, which I don't have otherwise) but I can definitely see renting a car to go hiking, out of town, etc. What I was talking about was getting a daily rental to do a few "local errands," in the P-I's words.

If I didn't have a car, I'd never get to see my relatives, most of whom live between 1 and 4 hours away. For the amount I use my car, which is a lot, it definitely makes sense to buy a car. What am I going to do, take a Greyhound route that takes 13 hours to go 240 miles? Or just never go places at all which entirely lack mass transit access? Cars are great. My life is dramatically enriched by owning one, and I'd recommend it to others.

If people want to actually car share - where several people own one car and share it - and they need legislation to make it work such as insurance laws etc. that would be one thing, but charging one car rental a tax and another no tax isn't right and probably not legal.

Will/HA why would you use Flexcar for holiday vists instead of a rental car? Unless you used the hourly rate to get away from Grandma sooner.

@ 12

Holiday visits to Kent, homeskillet. For like, 5 hours, tops. Totally a Flexcar-able trip.

moment, that most people who rent cars aren’t just paying for a full day’s rental and using them for a couple of hours. If that’s the case, then those people shouldn’t be exempt from the rental tax.

Why do you assume this, and even if you do, why shouldn't they? What if they've simply grouped multiple errands into one day for efficiency, rather than multiple small trips? That doesn't seem a totally unrealistic scenario. If the P-I's arguments are deficient for lack of empirical data, so are yours.

Damn it - let's try that again.

So let’s assume, for the moment, that most people who rent cars aren’t just paying for a full day’s rental and using them for a couple of hours. If that’s the case, then those people shouldn’t be exempt from the rental tax.

Why do you assume this, and even if you do, why shouldn't they? What if they've simply grouped multiple errands into one day for efficiency, rather than multiple small trips? That doesn't seem a totally unrealistic scenario. If the P-I's arguments are deficient for lack of empirical data, so are yours.

will/ha - 5 hours = $45-$50 Enteprise a better deal and you could group an errand or two and save even more.

Enterprise $25 including tax - not including gas and extra insurance.

In car-less cities people rent cars frequently for 2 weekend trips out of town. This helps enable them to not own a car. If a Seattleite foregoes a car and rents a rental car from Avis 4x a year to go to Mt. St. Helens, around the Olympics camping for a few days, or out to visit Grandma in Moses Lake.....they should get the tax break, too.

Why draw the line at car-sharing? All rental cars are shared cars.

The trump card with Flex/Zipcar is that the fees include insurance and gas. If I rented a car, I would have to pay for those in addition to the rental fee.

I can see the ultimate point with the article, that they should just axe the rental tax altogether. This is a society that is actively trying on aggregate to go carless and ease up on road traffic, and such a tax doesn't really help that cause... plus, the state's benefit from the tax is negligible.

@5 - This doesn't necessarily negate your point, but those "$19.95 per day" U-Haul's come out to about $50 per day, once tax, insurance, additional fees are tacked on.

@5, @19: Yes, to echo Dougsf -- I want to see you get a $19.95 per day U-Haul.

Whenever I or friends have called (we have now given up), even first thing in the morning, we are told they are out of them for the day, even when we can see them on the lot; that they are actually $19.95 for three hours; and that taxes, etc., add this huge amount on top.

I have to say it has never occured to me to rent a car for local errands.

Car-share for round-trip errands of 2-3 hours. Rental car for full-day or weekend, especially if going a long ways. Flexcar members get fabulous rates from Enterprise, BTW.