What is a Flexcar?

Question

I've seen them around town. Is this some kind of green thing?

Answer 1

Flexcar is a for-profit car sharing company, the oldest and second-largest (behind Boston-based Zipcar) in the United States. Flexcar can date its origins to March 1998, when its Portland, Oregon office was founded as a separate company (Car Sharing Portland) by David Brook; Flexcar itself was founded in January 2000 in Seattle, Washington as a public-private partnership with King County Metro. Flexcar is also present in Los Angeles; Gainesville; San Diego; Rochester; Atlanta; Pittsburgh; Tempe, Arizona (serving Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University); San Francisco; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Washington, D.C. and Columbus, Ohio, and, to varying degrees, in their suburbs. In addition, Flexcar is partnered with the non-profit I-GO carsharing service in Chicago.

Flexcar members choose a rate plan and pay an annual fee. The fees cover gasoline, insurance, maintenance, and cleaning. The vehicles are mostly late-model sedans, with other types, such as light trucks, hybrids, convertibles and minivans, also available. Each vehicle has a home location, a reserved space either in a parking lot or on a street, typically in a highly-populated urban neighborhood (as well as, in some markets, on college or university campuses). Members reserve a car by web or telephone and use a key card to access the vehicle. The reservation must specify the pick up and return time, so others can schedule the vehicle. Vehicles are returned to their home location.

The company targets people who make only occasional use of a vehicle as well as people who would like occasional access to a vehicle of a different type than they use day-to-day. Flexcar claims that the service should be economically beneficial to anyone whose car would normally be away from their home about 15 hours a week, and do not need a car for their daily commute to work.

In several of its cities, the company has formed a public-private partnership with a local public transit entity. For example, in Seattle they are partnered with King County Metro Transit, which operates the area's buses. The company's advertising materials there say, "Ride Metro when you don't need a car. Use Flexcar when you do."