Daimler-Benz enters car rental biz: Owning a car not a good thing?

“Any service that competes with owning a car is a good thing.”

Climatewire reports:

Don’t use a car that often, but sometimes need the convenience of getting around by car? The car-share company car2go is building what it calls the “bridge of automobility” in the United States.

On Saturday, car2go North America, a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler North America Corp., officially launched its program in the Washington, D.C., area with a network of 200 low-emission Smart ForTwo subcompact cars. The company held two events over the weekend to celebrate the new program.

“Any service that competes with owning a car is a good thing,” said Clayton Lane, chief operating officer of the World Resources Institute EMBARQ program, in an interview outside a car2go event at a local bookstore yesterday. “It should help living in a city — it makes it easier — using transit and biking. If you don’t have to own a car, it makes life easier.”

Lane’s wife Brittany, who also works for a nonprofit, said she thinks the service could help reduce driving emissions, too.

“We don’t own a car, but I imagine for our friends that own a car and live out in the suburbs … they might decide to commute in with this car instead of their own vehicle from the 1990s that pollutes a lot. I could see it impacting them in a positive way and impacting the environment in a positive way,” she said…

2 thoughts on “Daimler-Benz enters car rental biz: Owning a car not a good thing?”

  1. Good point Gamecock. In Washington there’s also an extension of public transit that allows people to rent cars at a commuter train terminus. Probably the idea is to make renting a car “upscale”–rent a Daimler, wow! But I have to say that, for those seriously interested in saving money, not owning a car is a very good thing.

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