Earlier this week Zipcar announced that it was acquiring Seattle-based Flexcar. For those of you not familiar with either company, they are both pursuing the same innovation – rental cars available by the hour parked down the street–not by the day parked at the airport.Most people these days operate on the paradigm of owning a car for every adult in the household (if not more than one). A car used 15,000 miles per year at an average speed of 30mph equates to 500 hours of use (less than 1.5 hours per day – or about 2hrs/day at 20mph). This results in most cars sitting idle 22 of every 24 hours. If the owner takes public transportation to work, idle time increase to 23 of every 24 hours for the vehicle.Depending on your tastes, it costs about $6,000 to have a car (loan pmt., gas, insurance, repairs, etc.) – or coming … Continue reading →