“Zipcar

On futurethink, I stumbled across a publication dated from January 2007, focusing on the eight angles of innovation. Along with other interesting things, they present new business models. In the January 2007 issue: Zipcar. When reading the abstract, I had to smile: Zipcar’s announced as “a US-based car-sharing company that turns the traditional model for vehicle rental on its head”. Obviously, the researchers at futurethink did not do very thorough research. Otherwise, they would’ve found out that the Swiss car-sharing Mobility offers the same service – since 1987, a whopping 12 years before the Zipcar founders got in touch with the Mobility-concept in Berlin. Nevertheless, it’s a great thing to see commercial car-sharing getting traction in the US and becoming a mainstream thing – maybe Zipcar customers in the future can rent Mobility cars as well – and vice versa?