> Why own a car (pay taxes, insurance, parking), when you can have one at your door in a couple of minutes ?
Because when I want to use one to go to the mountains or the beach on a holiday weekend there will be none available or surge pricing? This is already the case to some extent with rentals and car sharing services.
I own a car in NYC that is only used on the weekends. Financially this is a somewhat dubious proposition compared to Zipcar, but it's a win for me in two ways: it's always available without any reservation process, and my financial incentive is to use it more often since I've already paid all of the fixed costs (tax, insurance, parking) of ownership. I like this incentive since I enjoy getting out of the city. With Zipcar the annualized costs are fairly similar to owning a car and using it a couple of weekends per month, but a simple weekend getaway comes with a $300+ pricetag up front for the car rental.
> Because when I want to use one to go to the mountains or the beach on a holiday weekend there will be none available or surge pricing?
Some people will still own cars. But owning a car will shift from being a necessity (as it is for people today in areas without adequate transit systems) to a luxury.
This is a pretty solvable problem from a car service's POV: overprovision your fleet to account for people who want to take a car for a full day or even a week, and then charge significantly less than ZipCar but more than a local ride-hop (you could even change pricing plans so you pay by the hour/day instead of by the mile). Because your fixed vehicle costs are amortized over a much larger number of customers than ZipCar and your car can get itself from where there's supply to where there's demand, you can eliminate the reservation aspect and charge significantly less.
On an economic level, the occasional person who wants to reserve a car for a weekend uses up a much smaller fraction of a car than one who owns one outright.
But the economics will certainly change in the future. Self driving cars can be used around the clock and probably be used to deliver packages and food overnight. Maybe even empty your garbage or deliver batteries as an cheaper(?) alternative to your power company. Also scale and competition could get much bigger.
Because when I want to use one to go to the mountains or the beach on a holiday weekend there will be none available or surge pricing? This is already the case to some extent with rentals and car sharing services.
I own a car in NYC that is only used on the weekends. Financially this is a somewhat dubious proposition compared to Zipcar, but it's a win for me in two ways: it's always available without any reservation process, and my financial incentive is to use it more often since I've already paid all of the fixed costs (tax, insurance, parking) of ownership. I like this incentive since I enjoy getting out of the city. With Zipcar the annualized costs are fairly similar to owning a car and using it a couple of weekends per month, but a simple weekend getaway comes with a $300+ pricetag up front for the car rental.