Awsome story.

I have an article with a similar bent kicking around in my head - but instead i'm looking at the possibilities that open up when we finally have cars that drive themselves. Cars that safely drive without a human behind the wheel are closer than we think (i would say 10 years) - witness the recent DARPA trials where vehicles drove themselves over a 100 km course in the wilderness. The next DARPA challenge will take place in a city like environment.

The societal and economic implications of self-driving cars are huge. Much like you are suggesting in the above article - there is no reason to own a personal vehicle. This becomes even more-so when all you need to do is call your local car-share co-op with your cell phone, tell the automated computer operater where you are - and within a minute up pulls a car ready to take you where you want to go. Perhaps it will pick other people up along the way who are going to a location along the way (or perhaps you paid a premium fee to travel alone). It will be like having a private chaufer service at your beck and call without all the hassle and financial drain of owning a car. Who WOULD want to own a car??

Some of the wider implications:
1) Since each car will go from 10% utilization per day to 90% utilization per day we can invest way less money in cars and way more money in things that make us happy.

2)You'll notice that taxi-cab companies were the first to adopt hybrid vehicles - this is because their fuel costs make up a much large percentage of their total vehicle costs. If we are suddenly all part of a robotic car coop then we will suddenly see all of society switching to the latest and greatest in fuel economy - be that hybrids today or hydrogen tommorow.

3) Way less cars on the road. All trips become one way, there is no need for parking spaces, and we can pick up people along the way furthur reducing the number of vechiles on the road. Furthurmore, models have shown that robotic cars will use the road up to four times more efficiently than their human counterparts - this is because computers can syncronise their movements. With all these things combined we can likely cut eight lane highways down to 2 lane highways. We can turn 2 lane suburban boulevards with parking on either side into one lane streets with a long meandering park on one side. We will suddenly have alot more space in cities - what are we to do with it?

Just some of the many things that will become possible when we embrace cooperative car-share models. I would love your thoughts.

Cheers

Patrick Hayes

I'd love to get rid of my car, but I use it for travel around the province, so the scheme suggested wouldn't work for me. I wish I could afford a hybrid or that all electric was more of an option.
It just might be if this article gets the attention it deserves.
http://www.pnl.gov/news/release.asp?id=204

Interesting article. A good way of making a market more efficient which, in its turn, makes it greener.

I am amused, however, at the author's "living car free for a year". I've lived "car free" for a decade and I (and my family) are faring just fine. Not having a car means you walk, hitchhike, take the bus, take the occasional taxi and pay movers and delivery people.

It means you try to live within a couple of blocks of the grocery store and try to find work you can do at home. And it means that I - a global warming skeptic - have the environmental footprint of a well to do Ethiopian peasant.

Living "car free" is hardly a big deal; rather it is a choice.

Great story! I would definitely take part in a system like this. I have never owned a car, living as I have in places where public transportation or biking is cheaper and faster for almost all trips. But sometimes a car would be very useful, especially when I get to the point of having kids. But being able to share in the way you're suggesting would be great.

gardengirl, kids love the bus...

I know people who have used Vancouver's Car Co-op and like it.

This article reminds me of a story I saw in the news a few months ago about commuter cars available for rental at transit locations, the idea being you'd drive from home to transit (say, Skytrain) in a small commuter vehicle, drop it off, then pick another one up again on the way home. I believe there was to be a trial in Toronto, but I haven't heard anything since.

In the past I've used other commuter sharing options such as "go green" vans some people may have seen around Vancouver, but at the moment I mostly use transit. I'd definitely consider something like this.

Of course this involves personal choice in sync with one's own lifestyle, and the options provided within one's own community to facilitate this.

In order "to keep our own kids OFF the streets" ....quasi- pun intended,.... we keep them active in various activities, which would not be possible with Public transit or this TYEE article on "rent/lend out a car" option.
Again one of many reasons based on personal choice given our own particular circumstances.

Just finished seeing " WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR (WKTEC)? ". I expected it to be radical and slanted , but found it fairly balanced and have Googled for rebuttals.

Anyone else seen it...and care to comment? The Hydrogen as "the Fuel for the Future" comments near the end of " WKTEC?" were interesting, as its in sync with what I am hearing elsewhere.

Vancouver's Cooperative Auto Network (http://www.cooperativeauto.net/), of which I am a member, is an example of this thinking meeting with a great deal of success. I've found commuting via public transit, and then using the co-op as a lovely personal transit alternative time-to-time, as the perfect mix. The downside of this arrangement, however, is the expense of distance travel (beyond the confines of the Lower Mainland). This issue could be resolved through the leasing arrangement offered above.

Let us hope that ICBC takes as kindly a view to this potential arrangement as the city of Vancouver has already shown to the co-op (parking, etc.).

i went car less for 3 mos this year.... just did not renew my insurance when it expired. This year i am planning on going car less for 4-6 mos....but talk about roadblocks from ICBC to doing this:
-they want my licence plates when i cancel my insurance and i will have to pay $35 to get a new set when i insure my car
-there is no low rate for pleasure only low kms. it doesn't matter to ICBC if you put on way under 10,000kms {like me} or 100,000. they already do this for to and from work i.e. a lower rate if you drive a shorter way to work but not for pleasure only
-they will not look at one month on and one month off the road car insurance without a substancially higher premium rate

The benefit to me besides the obvious enviomental benefit was a much slower enjoyable pace of life. i walked everywhere i could. observed the changes in peoples gardens during the spring, watched the birds and generally opted out of the consumer driven society...just bought the basics that i needed.

i have been on the radio and written to ICBC to support customers that are trying their best to do reduce their car use. ICBC just is not interested. You would think that less cars on the road would translate to less accidents?..but ICBC just is not interested.

ICBC is too caught up in it's bureacracy to look at changes to help the environment. For example i was told that ICBC had no way of knowing how km's were put on in a year for pleasure only. i suggested that the odometers be read. also instead of turning in my licence plates just taking off the sticker and not havng to pay for a new set of plates when i re-insure...it's not rocket science!!

anyways great article.

Of course this plan is not for everyone. A self-employed plumber with a van full of parts is not going to use this system, but that's not the point. Enough people could use the system and with cooperation from ICBC (haha) and government this plan could work to reduce the need for more vehicles and more roads. Last year there was an increase of 25,000 cars added to Lower Mainland roads. We can't keep going the way we have been, that's for sure.

this whole scheme of course depends on not getting very popular. His 100 cars within 10 minutes will fall by one car for everyone that signs up within that 10 minute walk. It also falls by more than one at a time as each car less means one more person with a flex card. 25 less cars means 25 more people looking for that same car.

Also, who is going to pay for a car that might not be available when you need it.
Headed off to take the kids to hockey? You walk out the door and your neighbour swipes your car. Literally and figuratively. Yes, nice in theory, but reality bites.

He is right about one thing, "we can't keep going the way we have been".
Quit building roads and bridges and work on transit that works. As traffic builds and comes to a stop then working transit will take over.

This pie in the sky when you think about it even a little would never fly.

I read an article about a French designed car which runs on compressed air (but it needs to be plugged in to load the tanks up). Zero emissions, and reasonable for short commutes.

This will likely not be by choice.

I'll be surprized if the average person will be able to afford to own and operate their car for too much longer. The booming economies in China and India will raise the prices of the resources (metal, plastic, etc.) needed to build cars so much that people will have to share them.

The world is going to be a much different place 20 years from now. We better be prepared. Building a great transit system is way more importatant than ideas such as this.

This is an airy fairy idea, it will never,ever, fly, period.

Half the entrants didn't complete the course.

Most car co-ops allow you to reserve a vehicle. Assuming the kids play hockey at the same time each week, it probably wouldn't be an issue.

I love all the "good in theory but how can it work in real life" comments.

But don't tell the Vancouver Car co-op it can't work. They'll have to inform the approx. two thousand people currently sharing the co-op's hundred or so cars. That could get time-consuming.

If I had a monopoly on a product all vehicle owners had to have and if that product involved me convincing you to pay about a thousand dollars a year to guard against an unlikely event, wouldn't I be too busy counting the money to listen to the concerns of people eager to reduce my profits.

I've been 99% car-free since 1989. It can be done.

Thanks Stump for your comment and reading my posting. My goal is to be car free in the future.

Here is a challenge for all those with cars but are concerned about carbon emmissions and their own car use. Don't fill up your tank next time. Take that money and donate it to an environmental organization and spend the week or two that you would be in the your car taking the bus or walking. A Christmas present to the Earth!

Thanks for this write up about more sustainable choices for commuters and riders.

Here is a link to the Coop Auto Network's event at Oakridge Mall

http://sustainability-edu-fun.blogspot.com/

Then, there's also the fully-electric battery-powered car, as another option. Here are photos of one, under repair:

http://electric-pickup.blogspot.com/
http://towing-s15.blogspot.com/

As of January 18th 2007 ( the anniversary of the murder of my car) I will have been car free for a year. At first I thought crap I am never going to be able to live a normal life, work etc. But then something strange happened, I found something called public transportation and my life has been transformed forever! Yes folks I actually manage to see my clients, attend meetings and pay the rent - without a car! Now to be fair I do rent a car for the stuff where buses and skytrain fear to go and I carpool a lot - but all in all I don't miss the insanity of it all or the costs. I was laready a walker - now I do it even more and my body thanks me too! Mind you life as a pedestrian is pretty scary. All those auto addicted people out there so busy getting there as quick as possible seem to have difficulty noticing me crossing the street in broad daylight when the walk signal is bleeping and flashing!

I've been car free most of my life, and am a regular cooperative auto network user. As a self-employed person, it's also great come tax time, as all the trips are logged anyways and I can mark individual trips as business or pleasure when I book them.

I'd like to see some help in making it easier for friends and neigbhours to semi-formally lend their cars to one another and people they know, perhaps with a web resource for scheduling like what CAN has to facilitate scheduling and sharing of gas and other expenses proportionally. People could sign up as a car lending group, and pool their vehicles, with some admin support to help arrange it.

On the alternate transportation front, I think converted electric vehicles (a regular vehicle converted to electric)are the way to go. They go road speeds and the range isn't bad with a big enough battery pack. Once enough people had them, the auto manufacturers would have to start making them. Trades training programs and schools could be used to do the labour, and people could donate their old cars to these programs (similar to carheaven.org) to get a small tax credit if it was run as an environmental charity. Another problem is insurance - the equipment to convert one of these cars alone costs about $12,000 so insurance needs to cover that as part of the value of the car. As it sits now, when I looked into it, the electrical upgrade would have to be insured like a fancy stereo system, at additional cost, which isn't really fair. It should be just insured as a more expensive car.

On the human powered front, I've read about 'white bike' programs where bicycles are refurbished, painted white and then left unlocked around town at special bike racks for people to use as needed, and then leave for someone else to use. I think we're a long way off doing that for cars though.