#CarSharing

GM is introducing a new way for people who own its cars to make money: integrating a car sharing service with OnStar.

Car sharing programs allow you to rent out your car to strangers for a fee, but if said stranger is involved in an accident, you could catch some of the blame. 

Toyota has been forthcoming with plans to test an iQ EV in Europe, but little has been revealed when it comes to the electric iQ’s North American release. Badged as a Scion, don’t get your hopes up about owning one.

Following a national roll-out of the iQ, Scion is now considering the micro sub-compact for use in car sharing programs.

There were probably a few times in college when you and your friends really wished someone had a car you could use for a little while.

Maybe you needed to get groceries, or beer, or just a healthy distance from dorm rooms and campus nonsense. Whatever the need, California-based company Wheelz Inc. is trying to address it by linking students who have cars, and don’t always need them, with campus members who need short-term wheels.

Wheelz Inc., uses the idea of peer-to-peer car sharing to offer students a specifically-targeted platform for getting a car when they need one. The company received a major boost when Zipcar, the industry leader in car sharing, invested $13.7 million in their project.

“One of the reasons we’re excited to partner with Zipcar is that they bring a decade of operational experience,” Wheelz CEO Jeff Miller said.

That operational experience, according to Miller, will play a key role in helping Wheelz grow as a business in the future. Currently, anyone associated with Stanford, UC Berkeley, USC and UCLA are able to participate in the program. Students, administrators, teachers and anyone with a “.edu” email address from a participating campus may participate.

During their first day of public trading on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in New York, shares of Zipcar Inc., the car sharing organization, jumped by as much as 67 percent, opening at $30, considerably higher than the initial offering price.

On of the world’s top car sharing companies, Zipcar, is planning to make an initial public offering. It recently amended its Securities and Exchange Commission filing, and is now seeking about $89.2 million from sale of 8.3 million shares at around $14-16 each.

BMW is looking for an alternative to traditional purchasing options for their upcoming MegaCity urban vehicle, as the high cost of developing substantially new technology may result in the vehicle becoming prohibitively expensive for consumers. Among the projects being considered are a car-sharing service similar to the one operated by Daimler for their Smart car EVs. “More and more people in large cities are looking for an alternative to the ownership of a vehicle,” said Ian Robertson, BMW’s sales chief, in an interview with Automotive News.

Are company cars destined to be a relic of the past? Probably not, but companies are begging to adopt a new kind of corporate vehicle, one that can be paid for by the hour and operated by Hertz or Zipcar, two of the biggest names in auto-sharing programs.

We’ve been seeing a glut of stories lately about Generation Y and their increasing distance from the automobile. A new study shows that while Generation X made up 21% of the miles driven in 1995, Generation Y made up only 14% of them in 2010.