What is Zipcar? Zipcar is a car rental service that does it by the hour or by the day. It is a simple service that allows you to sign-up online within minutes and sends you a smart card, or if you have an iPhone, then you can unlock your car that way. They give you a few certain scenarios like people who need a car instead of public transit. It also talks about those that don’t want the ownership problems of fixing and repairing the cars. They even talk about renting a truck if you needed to move stuff around the city and didn’t want to call U-Haul or Budget. The cool thing is, the membership fees pay for insurance! The idea is great for San Fransico where there are cars every freaking block, but here in Nashville, we are only at Belmont and only have 2 cars as of now! Membership fees require a $25 one-time application fee and a $50 annual fee to stay a member. If the idea grows, and there are more cars in the future, then I may become a member!
The only two cars in Nashville right now are the Toyota Matrix or the Mazda 3..
Zipcar recently released the iPhone application(iTunes Store link) and this thing adds a cool twist to the usability of the service. It works for the iPhone and the iPod Touch (which seems useless for the Touch without a wireless signal or GPS) and allows you to find your car via GPS. You can also find and reserve your Zipcar as well through the app. The cool aspect is you can unlock and honk the horn of the car with the app as well. You can see an interview with the CTO on USA Today
via [Zipcar]
