Cityfi’s Brandon Pollak interviewed Angelo Adams, President of Zipcar to get his take on shared mobility and the move towards electrification. Please see the conversation below (questions are in bold).
Zipcar is a pioneer in the sharing economy and for re-thinking sustainable and equitable ways for how people get around in cities. What is your vision for the future of car-sharing?
For nearly 25 years, Zipcar has always envisioned a world where car-sharing outnumbers car ownership. What started as a few cars in Cambridge, MA, has grown to over 12,000 vehicles worldwide. Providing access over ownership is a business model Zipcar pioneered, before the iPhone was invented, and tech’s biggest issue was Y2K. Since then, several other categories have launched and have been referred to as the “Zipcar of” designer clothing, real estate, power tools, medical devices, home rentals, music — you name it.
As people seek convenient and affordable opportunities to access assets versus the high cost and hassles of ownership, we expect to see continued interest in car sharing. And, unlike competitors who have come and gone, we have found a variety of ways to enable smart growth and build a foundation for the future by constantly innovating in three key areas: 1) we obsess about perfecting the member experience, 2) we constantly work on our model for professional fleet management, and 3) we continue to strengthen our partnerships with cities across North America, some of which have endured more than two decades. These are all assets vehicle manufacturers, and other car-sharing providers (many of which no longer exist), including peer-to-peer companies, are trying to replicate.
As cities face continued, albeit slow, population growth, congestion, and increased mobility solutions available on-demand, we are seeing increased interest in options other than car ownership and Zipcar plans to be an indispensable mode of transportation for city living.
How can that vision help bolster efforts by cities that are still trying to reinvent themselves post-pandemic and struggling to attract residents and businesses?
Zipcar shares a vision with cities and policymakers across the globe — that it is possible to live a car-free or car-lite — to make lives easier, cities less congested, and the planet more sustainable. Since our founding in 2000, this year we have seen some of the largest and most disruptive changes in the urban areas we serve. Cities nationwide are shifting towards sustainable and equitable transportation with aid from the federal government, and Zipcar provides an unparalleled transportation model with its professionally operated fleet to support this shift.
As a founding member of SUMC, this year Zipcar joined public and private industry partners to advance the Shared Mobility 2030 Action Agenda so that equitable, low-carbon shared mobility will be more convenient, affordable, and accessible than owning a personal vehicle car in cities nationwide. Public and private partnerships that put equitable and sustainable transportation at the forefront — like New York City’s “On-Street Carshare” program, Pittsburgh’s “Move PGH” program, and Sacramento’s “Our Community Car Share” program,” to name a few, are attractive to residents and businesses who are increasingly cost and climate-conscious. By reducing personal car ownership, we support ideas like the 15-minute city, which puts people (not cars) at the center of urban planning and is increasingly attractive to cities and their residents.
As we look towards 2030, a federal milestone for electric transportation, Zipcar envisions cities thriving with people, where car-sharing outnumbers car ownership.
There are billions of dollars from the federal government and the private sector flowing in this transition to electric vehicles and the infrastructure that supports it. Where do you see Zipcar’s impact as it grows its EV fleet and generally on the evolving electrification economy?
Environmental sustainability is a key benefit of the car-free and car-lite lifestyles Zipcar enables, especially with the increasing adoption of EVs. Zipcar was the first car-sharing provider in the U.S. to introduce both electric and hybrid vehicles in its shared fleet, in 2022 we increased our eco-friendly fleet of hybrids by 10% and, throughout 2023, we have been expanding our EV fleet in select cities nationwide.
As we grow our EV fleet and draw our roadmap to electrification, we are engaging experts on EVs, public and private partners, and leveraging our relationship with our parent, Avis Budget Group, for scale and efficiency. As a result, we believe we are best positioned to bring high-quality, professionally maintained, shared fleets of professionally managed EVs to cities, campuses and business partners. However, to move forward with electrification, Zipcar is focused on four key elements of the constantly evolving electrification economy, including (and pardon the puns) electrifying city partnerships, empowering disadvantaged communities (which we’ll talk about next), driving innovation and supercharging member education.
Zipcar is teaming up with cities and the private sector to make electrified transportation available and accessible at convenient locations for urban residents. An optimal charging framework located in convenient locations is necessary to support an electrified fleet and enable sustainable transportation. A great example of this is the recent launch of the City of Sacramento’s “Green Tech Zero-Emission Mobility Hub.” This mobility hub is the first of its kind in California and will pave the way for 52 additional hubs that will provide Sacramento-area residents with electric vehicles powered by Zipcar, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and a zero-emissions shuttle.
Zipcar is constantly innovating behind the scenes to support a shared vehicle’s daily movement and lifecycle, which is increasingly complex with the adoption of EVs. Proprietary, purpose-built software offers visibility and guidance around the unique maintenance requirements of a professionally operated EV that is shared between 50–90 members with high utilization rates. Zipcar monitors charging history to optimize reservations and charging while meeting the turnaround time for our members’ demands.
And, while CityFi and its partners are versed in the constantly evolving world of mobility, EVs are still a new technology not well understood by the general population and Zipcar members. We are constantly developing content and educating members about EVs to ensure they are ready for their trip. The future of urban, electric mobility is tremendously exciting, and we have big plans to drive it further and faster in the coming years.
Zipcar made a commitment to the White House to allocate 25% of its EV’s to disadvantaged communities. How do people in cities such as DC, New York City, Chicago, and others benefit from the commitment?
As you mentioned, Zipcar joined the White House EV Acceleration Challenge and committed to providing 25% of our EV fleet to disadvantaged communities. Zipcar was founded not just to do well, but to do good and is driven by a mission: to enable simple and responsible urban living by reducing personal car ownership. In 2023, we advanced our mission and made sustainable transportation more accessible to a diverse member base, including more disadvantaged communities, via new public programs and by expanding our EV fleet.
We intentionally place our vehicles in traditionally underserved areas using proprietary technology and in partnership with cities. For example, more than half of our members identify as BIPOC, more than a third are university students and more than 80% live in multi-family housing. Nearly half of Zipcar’s member base has a household income less than the national household median income and 76% of members who earn $100K or less say Zipcar has “improved their quality of life.” Our mission-driven social impact is tangible — we provide residents access to groceries, job interviews, medical appointments — which they may not be able to reach via transit. We know there is a genuine need to support access to electric vehicles, especially to communities that may not be able to afford the cost of ownership and specific EV requirements such as dedicated charging, parking and maintenance.
This year, we are also working on various initiatives to support underserved communities including partnering with cities on their federal Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant applications to build e-mobility hubs, launching a grant-funded EV fleet to overburdened communities in New Jersey, and continuing our exclusive partnership with the New York Housing Authority (NYCHA), to name a few.
The average price to buy a new car remains over $48,000 according to Kelley Blue Book, making ownership incredibly difficult for many Americans. How has this informed your approach to customer acquisition and community engagement?
As you mentioned, car ownership is a hefty price tag that most Americans cannot sustain. AAA reported that new car ownership costs are at an all-time high. This year, more Americans were at risk of car repossession because of high sticker prices, increased inflation rates, and additional gas, maintenance, and insurance costs. For some, cars are a necessity, we know. But for those living in a city, college or business campuses, there are convenient, affordable and sustainable transportation options: public transportation, biking, walking, and car sharing, to name a few.
When it comes to customer, or as we call them “members,” acquisition and community engagement, we are continuing to do what we have been doing for nearly twenty-five years: work hard in collaboration with public and private partners to provide convenient, affordable and sustainable transportation.
One of the best ways we can engage a community with car-sharing is by offering car-sharing vehicles on-street, where people live and work, in high-visibility, highly populated areas underserved by transportation. One of the most significant examples of this is the NYC DOT Carsharing Program, which launched permanently this year. In addition to the more than 500 Zipcar locations already available in New York, hundreds of additional Zipcars can be found on-street. While Zipcar has served NYC since 2001, the NYC DOT Carsharing Pilot Program launched in 2018, and we learned that some of the pilot’s most successful areas were previously underserved by carshare, such as the Bronx and outer Queens. These two boroughs have the pilot’s highest-performing on-street zones and municipal parking facilities, indicating that the pilot is filling a gap in service demand. In the Bronx and Queens, Zipcars are utilized on average by 40 households per month for long-distance trips. Of these members, 56% of low-income NYC members say Zipcar has helped give them equal opportunities, and 68% of our BIPOC members say their quality of life improved after joining Zipcar.
At the end of the day, we also know we are saving our members money, which matters in an increasingly expensive world. We estimate we save our members an average of $1,000 a month on their transportation costs and we can provide all the benefits of car ownership without the cost and hassle: 24/7 on-demand, self-service access to professionally maintained vehicles with gas or electric charging, insurance options, maintenance, roadside service and dedicated parking.
As the cost of car ownership continues to increase and cities seek more equitable and sustainable options for car ownership, we are seeing more interest in car-sharing, especially when Zipcar can provide electric vehicles that are accessible and affordable for cities nationwide.
