What is this episode about?

 

We are sure you have heard of car sharing before! Especially living in big cities car sharing is everywhere and in the 21st century it is almost as common as using public transport. So letʼs get into it and take a closer look at car sharing and itʼs history. Even though car sharing seems to be fairly new phenomenon, it had actually been around as long as motorized vehilces have been invented. Even though there was no specific name for the act of sharing vehilces, people would use their own cars to give friends and family a ride.

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It was not until 1948 that it developed into a business idea and Switzerland launched itʼs first car sharing initiative called Sebstfahrergemeinschaft (engl. self-driving community), which is considered as the first wave of car sharing. The second wave didnʼt occur until the 1980ʼs when Germany officially introduced itʼs car sharing system StattAuto, which translates to instead of a car/city car. The main idea entailed a cost-efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to owning your private car and therefore offering the use of different vehicles for a limited period of time to get from point A to point B for less money than getting car from a car rental place.

Today, living in a digital world with the internet and mobile Apps always available, we now have the opportunity to take advantage of the car sharing systems in a whole new way.

 

Lorenzo Rossi, the head of marketing for the car sharing company Free2Move, describes the sharing system as a popular alternative amongst the younger demographic. Ironically, people living in bigger cities use car sharing systems more often than people in suburban areas, even though the public transport systems also provides a great alternative to owning private vehicles.

 

In our podcast we also discuss in detail the difference of use of car sharing systems in Germany, Italy, India and Great Britain. We feel that car sharing has the potential to be really successful as a full blown alternative. But at the same time, we also have to acknowledge the fact that car sharing has to improve further to actually appeal to the vast majority of people who know about it but are reluctant to use it. As we have mentioned in our podcast, an average of only 2% of the population use car sharing regularly and many use car sharing not as an alternative to owning their own car but as an alternative to using public transportation.

The trend however looks promising and it is a good sign that people are willing to move away from owning cars to promote a more clean environment. We really hope that this trend keeps continuing and as we are not far away from a future where we no longer depend on non renewable resources, the future for car sharing and the environment looks promising!

 

We want to thank Lorenzo Rossi for his time and effort.