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Contents 1 Carsharing - Modest proposal 2 template 3 Covoiturage/Ridesharing 4 differences with language 5 differences with table “Worldwide car sharing companies and cooperatives” 6 Better sourcing 7 Beyond sourcing 8 Improved organization, but . . . 9 "A type of cooperative" 10 Wikipedia is not a web directory 11 Drawbacks to Carsharing 12 NPOV tag 13 Intro sentence 14 Disadvantages and limitations section: no sources and kinda bad= 14.1 Revisiting 10,000 km

[edit] Carsharing - Modest proposal

Tedernst, Jmabel. Is there anyway that I can ask the two of you to lay off on this and give me say ten days to get it straight? I think by now you should have at least the first blush of the idea that I maybe know a mite [more about our topic] than you do - nothing wrong with that, eh? We also have seen that I have a lot to learn in order to get this in full order. But it is frustrating for me when you go in and start to mess with subtle matters that require real hands-on expertise – and dear friends, I do have that. So, if for these next days you would just be so kind as NOT to make major editorial change but just give me useful hints and guidelines if I am too far off your WP path, which I promise I shall give my full attention. In the meantime, I can concentrate in the challenging task of giving you something you might end up being more than satisfied with. Something, better, denser, more useful than what you may have had in mind a couple of weeks ago when you first started on this bold venture. (I would, and do, do the same for my brightest PhD students, so maybe a bit of reciprocity might be in order?) PS. If you want to hop over to [World Carshare] you’ll see on the top menu that we have put a Wikipedia link and are drawing the attention to our world forum to this entry – warts and all. I am hopeful that useful information will continue to flow in which either they will entry themselves or pass on to me for integration into the entry during this truce period. ericbritton 16:24, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

A truce would imply that we have a conflict. I do not perceive any conflict here. We're all just people collaborating on building an encyclopedia. I will continue to edit to improve articles and I expect others to do the same. I'm very glad to be working with you! My philosophy is always to be bold. Tedernst | talk 18:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] template

please see Template:Car sharing to edit the section with the worldwide list - this might want to be made into a box the way most other templates are, but since it was a section before, I left it as a section for the time being - plus, I don't know how to make tables -- Tedernst | talk 21:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

We don't normally turn sections of articles into templates like this. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that's why maybe it needs to be a box. The same section (different versions) appeared on 3 of the pages. Clearly that doesn't make any sense. Tedernst | talk 06:52, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

It's a box now. Tedernst | talk 17:12, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Covoiturage/Ridesharing

I've cut this French-language link Covoiturage avec 123envoiture.com from the article, along with some French-language hype that went with it. Unless I misunderstand, this is about ridesharing. At the moment, our Ridesharing just redirects to Carpool. Since ridesharing is broader than that, we might want to start an article at Ridesharing (with a link to Carpool) that talks about other kinds of ridesharing. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] differences with language

The car club link doesn't appear to have anything to do with car sharing. Is this a different use of the term? What do we do about this? Tedernst | talk 18:04, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I've placed a disambiguation note at the top of the car club article which points here. -- Adz|talk 04:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] differences with table “Worldwide car sharing companies and cooperatives”

Basically what I wanted to do was to develop – with a view to being as accurate as a respected international reference source on this important mobility strategy should be -- a more compete version – on the ground that your title “Worldwide car sharing companies and cooperatives” in fact covers only about ten percent of the carsharing operatives in the world. I hope that I have not hurt your feelings on this, since indeed it was a good move as the entry was taking shape.

I would have not dared do this Ted if I did not have a pretty fair background on the topic, which I invite you to check out at http://worldcarshare.com. And as you might well guess given the amount of time and attention have given to this rather strange little topic – but there is far more to it than one might at first guess, and for that have a look at our New Mobility Agenda at http://www.newmobility.org – I actually know not only each of the projects on that good initial list of yours but also the people who have worked so hard to bring them to life. Carsharing is not an easy deal, and the people who manage to keep them alive and in some cases even to prosper are outstanding social innovators. It’s a tough life for them.

As to the UK, actually they are now using both car club and carsharing (and community car share and carplus and and), which is only natural since over the last two years or so it has finally, and at a considerable delay relatively to most of the more advanced European countries, started to take off. I had originally put all that inside on the grounds that it does not strike me as bottom line information on carsharing per se, but if you like it there well that’s just fine by me.

As to “autopartage” this term is increasingly being used across the French speaking world, and if you go to http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autopartage you will see better how that is working its way out. (Incidentally we have just created a French national carsharing NGO which you can see at http://www.ecoplan.org/autopartage -- the Forum International de l'Autopartage. The reason we are doing this is that France being what it is, this kind of structure is needed if we are to get into the big leagues. (I attach a copy of a background talk that I gave at a meeting just organized last week at the French Senate to honor this new initiative.

Finally, and to get a taste of what is going on world wide I can point you to the last three “external links” which identify more than 600 cities world wide with carshare operations today. Ain’t that a pleasure to know that this kind of progress is going on. And the fact is that the North American model is only one of many and beyond that there are actually several different models currently going in the States (San Francisco presently has three competing suppliers) while Canada is hardly less varied in its approach. In fact if you compare the present Wikipedia Cities list (last item under externals) with its older version, you will see that we are taking the countries one at a time and bringing them up to date. And as possible with the corresponding web sites. Now THAT becomes a useful resource.

Let me close this probably too long note – but I wanted to do you honor for your good work – with the following short statement that comes from the opening page of World Carshare:

Why we support carsharing? Why does The Commons support a concept that may to some appear to be so off-beat and marginal as carsharing? Simple! We think it's a great, sustainable, practical mobility idea whose time has come and whose potential impact is quite simply huge. Carsharing: the missing link in your city's sustainable transport system.

Hope this works for you, and maybe we can even get you to follow the flow from the exchanges on the World Carshare “Idea Factory” to which more than five hundred people involved in carsharing world wide are members. I think you should find it quite useful for your own interests in the field.

That’s it. Back to work. And whatever you want to do with carsharing on the Wiki is just fine by me. I am an anarchist at heart so who I am to tell anyone else how to live. And especially not on a Wiki. ;-)

Best,

Eric Britton

PS and finally, Jane Jacobs? I know her very well and for many years, having collaborated with her on a number of occasions. If you are interested to talk about her and her wonderful approach to all these important things, give me a telephone number and a good time to call. I will be pleased to share some of my memories of all that with you, and the lessons I have learned from her. ericbritton 08:23, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Better sourcing

We need to cite sources for some of the information in this article. For example, the following sentence claims to directly quote some type of authority, but fails to identify that person(s).

• Carshare organizers and proponents say that “if you live in a city and drive less than ten thousand kilometers a year, you should probably look into carsharing”.

I see it was taken directly from http://worldcarshare.com/ but it is unsourced there as well. Citing references would help make this a more authoritative article. --Wildcat dunny 13:21, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I take your point Wildcat, but what do we do in the case in which the "citation" is simply a broadly shared point of view which is often simply _said_, with of course the expected many variations? I want to respect this great group work product (which I'd like to add is very close to my heart (and work)), but what do you do in a case like this when some phrase is widely said in many ways and many places (example of choice: "The Rex Sox are the best team in organized baseball")? Has anyone invented anythiing like "almost quotation marks" for such situations.

Tell me how to handle this and I promise I'll do my best. But I'm never going to be able to source that one.

Eric--This is a tricky issue for a resource like Wikipedia in general, but I think there are ways to address it. For example, if it really is a point of view that is broadly shared by a group of people, then we should try to find a source in which one of those people expresses such a view and cite that. Even better is if we can find an authoritative source that states the view is widely held. See Wikipedia:Cite sources and Wikipedia:Cite sources/example style for some basic info on citing sources on Wikipedia. I tried reworking your quote a bit (and moved it down a paragraph). My goal was to still express that point of view, but in a more verifiable fashion (see the footnote/reference).

We should also try to provide references for other factual assertions made in the article. The stylistic details for citations in Wikipedia are still being worked out, but including verifiable references now will help make this a stronger article into the future. --Wildcat dunny 16:35, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Beyond sourcing

Looks great Wildcat. I am getting there and the entry at the same time. As you will have spotted I am one of those who learns by doing and then when he actually does it proceeds in iterations. Couple of points that I would like to share with you quickly, if you will:.

1. I like the “Contents” and see how it works. Any problem now that you have added the (absolutely necessary, and whatever was I thinking about) Reference section, if I kick over some of the sources that do that job into that category. These are great since they serve to give a variety of perspectives – important here because of the great heterogeneity of these operations. We don’t want anyone who is genuinely curious to get the idea that there is just one set of perspectives and one basic model. Just ain’t so.

2. As to the ‘origin’ of the famous quote, I guess as authoritative a single source as we can find is just maybe me (though I prefer to cite the World Carshare Collaborate rather than myself – I always feel that only schmucks quote themselves). But after all, who knows more about it than we do? Also since WCS thus becomes the cited source, we can use exactly our wording (which incidentally has been on the opening page of http://worldcarshare.com untouched since 1999 – and believe me if it did not rhyme with the people we have coming into that program, we would have been hooted out of the ballpark a long time ago.)

3. Next and before I take this any further, I will be a good lad and get back to your “How to write a great article” entry and its extensions. (I believe the expression is “Duh”)

4. If you have a minute to have a quick look at The Commons: Open Society Sustainability Initiative at www.ecoplan.org you will see that what we try to do is create ‘knowledge and action zones” (poorly said Eric, but it’s late) which invite a very wide range of people with interests in the specific area (carsharing being just one example) to “build knowledge and consensus to support change”. Again, the basic themes are (a) better understanding technology change as it effects people in their day to day lives. And (b) the difficult struggle toward sustainable development and social justice.

5. I am now (as we used to say in Mississippi cogitatin’ on a new project that you can catch at http://www.xwork.org (New Ways to Work in an Information Society) – the specific goal of which will (may) be to create and help propel a “Self-Organizing Collaborative Network” that will look specifically and creatively at improved the supply/demand mesh of IT and SD (sustainable development). One of the main reasons for doing this is that most of the international organizations and bilateral aid programs just do not seem to be able to get anything of much use done. And I think that if we bring together a couple of hundred bright and diverse people and put them in the right learning/collaboration environment we may be able to blaze some useful new trails. The site at present is just getting underway, and certainly needs work and maybe some cutting and dicing. But the reason I bring this to you attention is that there are definitely some important object lessons to be learned from you great on-going experiment. (And who knows, you might even be interested to keep an eye out on this one as it moves along.

Sorry to be so loquacious, but I am half Irish. Good thing it’s only half, and good night.

ericbritton 22:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Improved organization, but . . .

I very much appreciate the more structured framework that you have now created here. It's a big improvement. But on the other hand we have some real problems with what is now being proposed on the content side. Let me take one example alone: the History section.

Sorry but this information is seriously inaccurate. The fact is that there is a great deal of mis-information that pops up cheerfully in the media and other sources on this new mobility form. However at this point since I am not a seasoned member here, I quite frankly do not know what to do next. On the one hand, I really don't want to hurt anyone's feelings or dampen their enthusiasm. Life is too short for that. But I would hope that there is a premium here on accuracy. Let me know and I'll get to work on it. (Incidentally this is important for us in terms of accuracy, since I have popped the reference right at the top menu of the World Carshare site, and I certainly cannot leave it there if it says in this form. I would not be able to stand the laughter.) Salamaat, Shalom, and Peace on Earth. ericbritton 16:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

“I'd still be interested to know what is inaccurate with the article.” - --Petros471 16:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough, let’s just take that history section, by the numbers and very quickly for now:

1. “Car sharing was first developed in Europe during the early 1970s”. Wrong. Try this: International Carshare Developments and Trends: 350 BC -2006

• • Ca. 350 – Aristotle writes "On the whole, you find wealth much in use than in ownership."
• • 1948 – Selbstfahrergenossenshaft and the rest – 2300 years later
• • 1960’s – The “miracle” of PRT and automatic small vehicle transport (precursors of carsharing 2005?)
• • 1972/4 – Two great carsharing projects: ProcoTip and Witkar start . . . and stop
• • 1980’s – Slow, spread out, start-and-stop diffusion – but it doesn’t stop there
• • 1987+ – Carsharing starts to come of age: Pre-Mobility & StattAuto set pattern. As projects multiple around (mainly) Europe, World Carshare Consortium established
• • Late nineties – Carsharing picks up speed and starts to establish itself in country after country (fast here, slower there. . . including France)
• • 2005 -- More than 150 CSOs identified in World Carshare inventory
• • 2006 -- More than 650 cities around the world where you can carshare this morning

2. . . . in response to the high cost of car ownership and the 1973 energy crisis

Wrong. That’s hindsight. Not information. Most of the start-ups in the middle Dark Ages of carsharing in the 70s/80s were driven by mainly ecological and neighborliness, with of course a good dash of potential savings.

3. The concept spread to North America in the 1990s, beginning with Communauto in Canada. The United States saw the introduction of its first car sharing organization in 1998[1].

Wrong again. Benoit Robert and CommunAuto are important landmark projects, but there were small very artesian carshares going on in the States already in the eighties. True though the real push gets underway in the mid-late nineties. You 1998 reference for the State is for the first _commercial__ CSO start-up, but Dave Brook and his team in Portland Oregon. (Today this is Flexcar.)

Let me not drive you nuts with this quibbling, but I hope the basic idea gets through. We can get this right, and in the process make a real contribution. But we need to have a firm base if we are to engage the other serious players who will be pleased to make a strong statement stronger yet. Which to my mind is what Self-Organizing Collaborative Networks are all about.

ericbritton 17:34, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• Thank you for addressing specific disputed facts, that is helpful. You'll notice that the information in the History section cited a specific source, and those statements can be easily verified within the source material. This is consistent with Wikipedia's official policy on Wikipedia:Verifiability. In this case, it appears you are attempting to dispute that information on the grounds that the source is not a Wikipedia:Reliable_source. That is a useful argument to make, but it is important to back up your claim by explaining on the talk page why you do not consider that source to be reliable. Others can then discuss the reliability of the source and come to some type of resolution (usually this is a relatively quick process). --Wildcat dunny 23:29, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

• In your contribution above, you included some very specific information about the history of car sharing. It seems to me that much of this information would be useful for inclusion in the History section of the article. However, you did not cite a source for this information. (I found no reference named "International Carshare Developments and Trends: 350 BC -2006", and a quick Google search turned up nothing. A link or formal reference would be more helpful.) I understand that you are involved in a car sharing community and likely have good knowledge about the topic, but the Wikipedia:No_original_research policy requires that information in articles have a basis in published sources. Since you may be considered an expert on car sharing, the page on Wikipedia:No_original_research#The_role_of_expert_editors may be of interest. If you are an expert, you probably have knowledge of some great sources to support that content! --Wildcat dunny 23:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "A type of cooperative"

The lead now says that carsharing is "a type of cooperative", even if it is for-profit. I think that's just plain wrong. How is it any more a "cooperative" than, for example, a video rental store? Unless someone can make a strong case for this that currently escapes me, it should be removed. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:11, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Now, I want to take this one as sweetly as I can, but when I read canonical statements from you, Jmabel, like "it should be removed" about a topic in which the writer (in this case you) is still very early on her/his learning curve, I begin to wonder if I am in the right place here. At the very least, if you are authoritarian you should at the very least be an authority on your subject (are you?). A polite challenge between colleagues is one thing. Marginal rudeness quite another and your tone is very much the latter.

Back to CSOs as cooperatives.

(a) Historical: Most of the early schemes through the late nineties were actually established as cooperative ventures (under a variety of labels but nonetheless on inspection cooperatives indeed).

(b) Contemporary: And this is still an important pattern for small start-ups today.

(c) Behavioral: Join a carshare operation in your community - – whether non-profit or for- - and you will quickly see how the cooperative component, how strong and continuing cooperation among the members is vital.

(d) My acid test for all statements here are the members of the World Carshare cooperative, who collectively know more about this topic than anyone in the world. And thus far, none of them who have some in and had a look have squealed.

All that said, if this is not a place of measured, friendly even collegial discourse and decision making, then I am out of here. If I were looking for authoritarianism, I would move to any of the tattered vestiges of the good old soviet union.

NB. The cooperative movement in Europe, and in Latin America where it is mostly a spillover from the Spanish Civil War, has far deeper historical and political roots than the Wikipedia entry on the subject currently charts. The links to what can only be called “positive anarchy” and “Communalism” are very important parts of that ball of wax – although my available time and immediate credentials do not permit me to go into that entry and trying to push it in this important direction. I would like to think that it might be taken into account in good time. And that after all is what this cooperative venture, the Wikipedia, is all about. (Or do I have that wrong?) <-----this comment added by User:Ericbritton

I may be a relative newbie on carsharing, but I'm quite knowledgable on cooperatives (although, to the best of my recollection, I've never worked on, or even read, Wikipedia's article on the topic). Yes, historically many (perhaps most, I have no idea) carsharing operations have been cooperatives. But FlexCar, for example, is no more a cooperative than the for-profit video rental store in front of which one of its cars may be parked. Is it a good business for the community? Sure. Glad to have them here in Seattle. But in institutional terms, "cooperative" has a very specific meaning: it means member-owned on some level, whether those members are consumers or (as in a farmers' cooperative) small producers. It typically means one share per member, and always means a very limited ratio of shares per member (the [Mondragón Cooperative Corporation|Mondragón cooperatives]] historically allowed as many as six shares for highly skilled workers; I'm not sure, but I think that may now have gone higher).

Is there an element of cooperation involved in even a for-profit carsharing operation? Absolutely. But we don't call a public library "a cooperative" either: in that case, it is publicly owned, not cooperatively owned. Nor a university, unless somewhere there is a university run as a co-op (presumably, owned by its faculty). And making a library or a university succeed also involves plenty of cooperation. -- Jmabel | Talk 10:31, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

No response from the first responder (User:Ericbritton, who needs to lay off the personal attacks) and Jmabel is correct, so I'm changing the sentence.

[edit] Wikipedia is not a web directory

Some of this is shaping up well, but other parts are turning into a web directory. Wikipedia is not a repository of links. I've done some cleanup, but this is getting bigger than I feel like taking on, and I would appreciate if the people writing this would make an effort to familiarize themselves with Wikipedia standards. I can't go through a hundred external links to see which are likely to be useful to a reader. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:36, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Jmabel. Since we are at the outset here in our collaboration, I think it’s important that we get on the same side without losing any more time. So let me take it one at a time, with an eye among other things to keep you from losing time with all that cross-checking:

1. First, I want you to know how much I appreciate your English language proofing. Not that I – you may have noted that I am a bit of a word person, or at the least a real lover of careful use of language(s) – hence I look at your editorial changes with real interest, not least because they are all nicely reasoned. I had to grin when you changed my “got established” (may sound like Appalachia calling, but it is indeed proper English, if out of common usage in most places today) for your more current “become established”. In point of fact I hesitated at least three times myself before letting it start its short and happy life there. Well, bye “got”.
2. I was sorry to see that you shipped the two gizmos that demonstrate (a) how carsharing works and (b) impact on the city to the External Links section, where I am afraid they get a bit lost. My thought is that simple as they are they help people from the outset to get a cleare visions as to what this is all about.
3. I purposely separated carsharing/carpooling distinction para – which is universal – from the UK discussion, which is specific and need not concern most people. But hey . . .
4. The bottom line – editorially-wise speaking (and here I quote the great Professor Peter Schickele of the University of Southern North Dakota) is that your version is a far, far better thing. . .
5. Now the big one: Let me start with your good reminder that “Wikipedia is not a web directory” and specifically you firm reminder that it is not a “is not a repository of links”. Hmm. Yes, yes and but. Let me see if I can explain.

In collaborating with you all on this, my model for the handful of entries that I intend to make (who knows once you start?) is to follow the inspiration if not exactly the model of the famous 1911 Britannica, which has always been a great friend and mind stretcher for me since childhood. As you know it was a storehouse not only of the usual and most important crisp encyclopedic definitions, but also was intended by the editors and main collaborators as a research tool opening up both broad concepts and new specifics of their fast changing world for anyone who had the energy to look.

This gives me a variant of the classic Scylla and Charybdis navigation problem. On the one hand, I don’t want to run away from the best of your lovely concise Wikipedia presentation model and guidelines. But at the same time, we are looking here – as with my evolving contributions in terms of the New Mobility Agenda, Car Free Days, The Commons, [Kyoto World Cities Challenge] and Self-Organizing Collaborative Networks -- at rich, ground breaking and internationally quite well known concepts that are not just in hot air, research projects or someone’s next book, but which are focused, practical, articulated instruments of knowledge building and change. Now these may be new to you (and gazillions of others), but they are part of a process of sustainable development and social justice and are known (and not always appreciated) by tens of thousands of policy makers, activists and scholars in many parts of the world, rich and poor. (You can get a handle on the type of people and groups who are part of this world wide movement if you click the International Advisory Council link at the top of www.kyotocities.org, which lists approximately ten percent of those who are either closely following or actively working with pieces of this new development agenda.

Back to [carsharing] as a concrete case in point. My goal here is (a) to provide an accurate description and general introduction to the concept and its current realities for the general reader, and (b) in parallel provide a fairly comprehensive set of tools and leads that will help scholars, policy makers, public officials, and people and groups considering possibly doing something along these lines – with a strong set of references in one place, and at a level that would have made Mr. Chisholm nod his head in agreement. Modest project.

I note that our present draft is still well short of 3k words and well within the size limits set our in various places in the WikiInfo. I also note that we have come a long way since we hunkered down on this together just two short weeks ago. Admittedly we are staggering to get this right, but I would imagine that this is par for more complex and generally little known phenomena such as this., when the visiting schmendrick (that’s me) is going at this for the first time. As I look at the text, I am pleased if not by what we have here thus far but both by the general tone of the entry as well as the direction which we have now firmly engaged. As to those last sections of links and references, yes I agree that more thought and work will be needed there, and I am pleased to engage to make sure that it gets done. I hate thinking of myself as an “expert” on anything, but I guess when it comes to this particular entry that words is as good as any other. What I would like to hope is that I am not both an exert and stupid – which is a combination of which I have seen many examples in the past. And not least in the field of transport and city polities. (Which by the way explains why things are in such a mess in many places.)

The acid test: A first handful of my international colleagues ,who know this field from the inside as well as anyone, have already had a peek at what we are doing here, and they have been universally encouraging. Indeed, if you go to World Carshare at, you will see a Wikipedia link on the top menu, which takes you to an introduction page which invites them to come in and add their expertise and vision to ours. I also am inviting all of the 20+ operators world wide whom we have inventories, to come in and add nice crisp entries under their names. Thus making this a truly useful contribution to and from the Wikipedia.

Over and out on the eve of 24 Dec 2005. And if you are a Christian, let me wish you a very merry Christmas. And if you’re a Jew, well Happy Chanukah. And a Muslim, or like me an all purpose life embracing infidel: a happy and long life with those you love ericbritton 18:11, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Apologies that I'm not giving this a lengthy reply, but sections like Where it works as it currently stands are simply not Wikipedia style. When we want to aim people outside of Wikipedia like this, we do it in an external links section. Period. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:41, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

There are far far too many links. I will work on removing some of them that are less useful. Cacophony 19:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. If you are dirctly competent in this area that will be fine. But otherwise I would be pleased to do it for you. Let me know. ericbritton 08:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drawbacks to Carsharing

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that, in the event of a collision, a user will not be able to take advantage of his or her credit card's collision damage waiver coverage. This is true of at least Visa and Mastercard -- the underwriters for both companies' collision programs have rules that explicitly exempt car-sharing services from coverage. Thus, a member could find herself staring down a rather large insurance deductable, as I once did. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.39.221.20 (talk • contribs)

Some carsharing programs have their own arrangement with the credit card companies. Cooperative Auto Network in Vancouver waives the deductible if the member's bill is paid pre-authorised with a Visa Gold card, for instance. I'm not sure how to work this into the article or where a reference for the mention could be found, though. — Saxifrage ✎ 19:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Before you feed any of this into the article, be aware that insurance is very country-specific. I have never heard of credit card companies giving automatic collision damage waiver coverage, where does this happen? With Mobility, third party is covered (which is a legal requirement), you pay the first CHF 2500 for damage to the car, but you can reduce this to CHF 300 by paying an additional CHF 125 per year [[1]]. And they do not accept credit cards to pay bills. TiffaF 08:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV tag

There is still a whole lot of "Carsharing is great" kind of language including 16 advantages to carsharing, how great it works, etc. throughout this article. This needs to be pruned considerably and rethought in terms of the Neutral Point of View policy. I can go through with a broad scythe, but I think it's a task better suited for someone with more knowledge of the subject... (ESkog)^(Talk) 00:50, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your sentiments and have made a few modifications. Cacophony 05:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that Cacophony has done a good job with this (much of what he improved was of my invention so take that!) -- but I do really think as someone who knows as much about this field as anybody (sorry!) that the list of 'advantages' of carsharing is not overly long for the entry. There is plenty of evidence around for these claims, so please, they are not pie in the sky (as often happens in the world of transportation where honesty is not always the most evident quality) . Moreover since this is a new transport form, since it is largely unknown in most places around the world, and since WP is increasingly a first reference point for people wanting to know, we owe it to all concerned to do this right. Which I think we are now on the way to doing.

That said, I continue to oppose that little green table which has not grown much and which somehow suggests by its sheer presence here a certain authority. It ain't. It misses >95% of the action, and by presenting such a truncated view of things does the entry no great service. Want a comprehensive list? Let me know and I'll put one in. (In the meantime you can check it out at http://worldcarshare.com clicking State of the World then Inventory for a couple of hundred operators. Or the cities list for more than 600 places around the world in which you can get a shared car this morning.ericbritton 10:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I also oppose that ugly green table. It should be moved to List of carsharing operators or something similarly named. Cacophony 18:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intro sentence

The introductory sentence currently says "Carsharing is a system where a fleet of cars (or other vehicles) is jointly-owned by the users". While reading through the discussion, I saw an earlier disagreement over referring to carsharing as a cooperative. Unfortunately, I do not feel that the current text is much of an improvement; it merely says "cooperative" with different words. Furthermore, it's probably completely incorrect when describing a commercial CSO. An alternate phrasing, while still not perfect, might be: "Carsharing is a system where a fleet of vehicles is available for use by the members". I took out the text in parentheses, since the name "carsharing" implies clearly enough that cars are the primary types of vehicle. --Scott McNay 03:10, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I own a Car Sharing service with a fleet of seven cars and never thought it should be structured as a cooperative in order to qualify. 82.130.44.108 09:17, 26 June 2007 (UTC)Risto Pietilä, Finland.

Wrong. You apparently is the owner of a car rental company, and have hijacked the term car sharing to promote your business. Such things happen to language, and it might be reflected in the sentence in this way: "Carsharing originally was system where a fleet of cars (or other vehicles) is jointly-owned by the users. The system's relative success has later also made car rental companies adopt the term". Anyone agrees? Gabriel Kielland (talk) 22:17, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

First, don't make personal attacks. Before you posted your commnent I had changed the intro sentence to reflect that fact that many car sharing organizations are for-profit companies. A note on the history of car sharing would be appropriate, but it would have to be verified by reliable sources (especially a claim that the success of cooperatives led to commercial entry in the market). MrVibrating (talk) 22:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Disadvantages and limitations section: no sources and kinda bad=

Aside from being completely uncited, I think some of the points here are pretty weak and have little relevance to the actual uses of carshares. I'm definitely not saying this section shouldn't exist (there ARE obvious limitations to such a system), I'm just saying that these critiques should be specific to the goals of carshares, and not be a general comparison between the obvious limitations of carshare membership as compared to the freedom afforded by full-on car ownership. This makes sense, right? Specifically, some of the "disadvantages" focus on how it's not very feasible on a daily basis. From my knowledge, people who use these types of services don't need these cars on a daily basis. It's more for the occasional user. Please disabuse me if I'm wrong.

Specifically: "it is felt to be irrelevant given the scope of the problems that especially the larger and more traffic strangled mega-cities face." While the impetus for many users is definitely a concern for the environment, some users just do it because it's cheaper. Therefore, the overall impact (or lack thereof) of the carshare is not a drawback. I think this one could just be reworded.

In general, the lack of citations is what bothers me.. some good points are brought up, but this reeks of OR--Hraefen ^Talk 06:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revisiting 10,000 km

Ok, let's revisit this quote: "if you live in a city and drive less than ten thousand kilometers a year, you should probably look into carsharing". I haven't looked to see if it's in the current version of the article, but it seems too good to leave out, and if it really is correct, it should be fairly easy to whip up a formula to back up the statement (the exact result will vary with location), and someone can plug in sample numbers (such as from the American Automobile Association) and put it on an authoritative website that WP can then refer to (Eric, are you awake?).

Here is what I came up with. I'll let someone else do the algebra to determine the breakeven point for distance (or just let Excel do a whatif calculation, which is what I'd do). That'll give a number that can be quoted if someone does NOT drive less after joining a CSO. Don't forget to document the reduced average distance driven when people join a CSO (several CSOs have quotes for this on their websites); that'll give a second breakeven-point value.

Operating costs per kilometer:

 Fuel
 Maintenance
 Tires

Ownership costs per year:

 Insurance
 License, registration, taxes
 Depreciation
 Finance charges

Ownership costs per kilometer:

 Ownership cost per year / Average kilometers driven per year

Cost per kilometer:

 Operating costs per kilometer + Ownership costs per kilometer

Annual cost per year for ownership:

 Ownership cost per year + Operating costs per kilometer * Average kilometers driven per year

Carsharing annual time charge:

 Average number of hours spent driving per year * CSO hourly charge
 (each trip should be rounded up to the next hour)

Carsharing annual distance charge:

 Average kilometers driven per year * CSO per-kilometer charge

Average charge per year for carsharing:

 Carsharing annual time charge + carsharing annual distance charge
 (The actual charge may be less, because many CSOs have various discounts)

--Scott McNay (talk) 05:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I made a boo-boo, will fix when I get home from work. --Scott McNay (talk) 12:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC).