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Well, I've finally sealed my commitment to being car-free in Boston. I've gone and joined Zip Car.
For those who don't live in cities where there is no Zip Car (pretty much large cities where car ownership is little more than a colossal pain in the butt, the service rents out cars by the hour. This lets you run an errand, grab lunch with friends in the 'burbs, get yourself to one of those big-box stores that aren't generally found downtown, without having to rent a car for the day.
ZipCar "plants" cars at convenient locations in urban neighborhoods: parking garages, gas stations. You make your reservation online for the block of time you're interested in, the pickup location and the make/model of car you want to drive, then head on over to pick it up.
Your membership card - there's both a very reasonable one-time charge for joining, plus an also reasonable annual fee - is the smart card you use to unlock the door, and away you go.
Unlike with a rental car, the cost of gas and insurance are built in - all incorporated in a flat rate. If you have to fill-er-up, there's a gas card above the visor: you don't go out of pocket. Similarly, if the ZipCar car is located in a garage, they've taken care of the parking fees.
The hourly rates aren't free - they claim that they have rates starting at 9/hour, but the cheapest rate for any car near where I live is 10/hour for a Mazda. You pay more for the privilege of driving something large and/or fun: Mini Cooper, SVU, BMW. But if you don't need a car for the day, it's a lot cheaper than a rental.
A few weeks ago, before I joined ZipCar, I rented a car to get out to a suburban client's office for a one hour meeting, to the tune of 63. Earlier this week, I used ZipCar to get to an hour meeting - different client but, weirdly, same office park - and it cost 42. (Four hours @ 10/hour plus tax.)
Now, if I'd been using my own car for this jaunt, I wouldn't really have needed 4 full hours, as the client site was only about 15 minutes if the traffic gods are with you. But traffic gods being the malevolent brutes that they are, you can't really count on there being no snarls and tangles, so with ZipCar, you need to pad your estimates of how long the trip will take so that you can get it back into its parking space in time for the next ZipCar member to pick it up. If you don't, there's a Late Fee that starts at 50. (I never want to find out where it ends.) You can call in if you find you're going to be late, but I don't know what the financial implications - if any - there are to that.
On my first date, I got the car back with maybe half an hour to spare, but - since I'd deliberately blocked out some comfort time - I wasn't rushed a the client, so was able to hang around and meet more team members, catch up with a former colleague who works there, etc., without feeling like Cinderella with her magic coach about to turn into a pumpkin.
From sign up, to reservation, to picking up the car, to returning it, to getting my invoice e-mailed to me, the entire process was pretty darned near flawless.
The only hitch for me - once I figured out where the parking pass was - turned out to be that the car had one of those weird-ball faux manual shifts. If I'd read the fine print when I made the reservation, I would have known what the "M" meant on the gear box.
It took me a few minutes of going, "hmmmm, this car sounds like it's in second, what's with that" to figure out that M- meant downshift, M+ meant upshift, and that the number on the dashboard was, indeed, telling me what gear I was in.
Having driven standard shift cars for so long, the clutchless shifting was too weird for me, so I just threw it into "D" (which I discovered just about the same time it dawned on me what "M" was for). The default setting for driving the Mazda was "M", not "D", which I suppose makes sense, given that someone buying one is likely doing so deliberately so that they can have this semi-automatic or semi-standard or whatever it's called experience.
(Is the "M" option something that's designed to ease the transition of Boomers who've decided it's too damn aggravating to drive a standard in stop and go situations? Not to mention that, given the general paucity of makes and models to choose from if you're looking for a standard, I wouldn't be surprised to find that people would elect the "M' so that they could retain some of the flavor of driving a manual shift. And is the term "standard shift" even used anymore? It must be a relic of those long ago days - well before my drive time - when a manual was standard, and an automatic was some fancy extra furbelow.)
Driving in "M" seemed a little bogus to me, but Ill be given it a whirl again soon. (I've already signed up for two more excursions using the Mazda.)
I've read that the "standard" rent-a-car places - Avis, Hertz, Enterprise - are all looking at some kind of rent by the hour option so that they can compete with ZipCar. I don't see them able to get to the level that ZipCar has gotten to anytime soon, with it's convenient 24/7 pick-up/drop-off locations, and everything else that's part of a model that was designed from the outset for short-duration rentals. (You can, by the way, also rent a Zip car for the day, but I think their tilt point is about 6 hours. Up to that magic moment, ZipCar is cheaper; beyond that, a rental car is.)
In any case, my ZipCar experience to date has been nigh unto flawless, and, personally, I'm delighted to have one more reason not to ever again own a car.
My, oh, my, oh, what a wonderful day it is when you can use ZipCar rather than worry about moving your car for the street sweepers, shoveling it out, or finding a darned parking place to begin with.
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay...
Reference: umad-dating-advices.blogspot.com
Ratan Tata, the famed leader of India's Tata Corpus has expected in an opinion poll the other day (The Period of India, November 29, 2013) that it was a mix-up to carry described and located the highly developed Tata Nano small car as the world's cheapest car. He straight away went to the scale of stating that the Nano necessary be launched in a new disembark like Indonesia in a new Avatar and brought back to India with a new image. Ratan Tata, the Chairman Emeritus of the Tata Corpus as well exact that the car was mature as a safe alternative for the Indian small family of husband and group and their early who gad about unsafely on a two-wheeler and covered that Nano car substandard to pull out its place due to the blot of a cutback car. He as well felt that it might be launched as a tainted product in Europe where on earth it has a lot of doings. For all those who supposed in Tata Nano as a standard of Indian push aside, Ratan's wave on Nano prerequisite carry come as a rude boon.
By any point of reference, Nano was a scientifically brilliant package. It is a 4 way in lightheartedness imitate car, with a 2 channel upgrade mounted gasoline train and a 4 speed gearbox, licensed of prosperously seats 5 dwell in of a small family (couple and the offspring). Near a move smoothly bunk bed of 2.2 meters and an all told scope of 3.1 meter and a scope and height of 1.5 and 1.6 meters each, the car attain the Volkswagen Jut out over small car in emerge solidity and internal freshness. Near a power and torque output of 38 PS and 51 NM each, and a kerb prominence of 600 Kg and a twist radius of only 4 meters, Nano is as well an model town car. The practical car had a gain price of Rs 100,000 (next USD 2000), becoming the world's cheapest car to be understood, artificial and commercialized ever in the world. This level of techno-commercial brilliance is indubitably a matter of massive distinction for India, a disembark that was until currently tremendously conditional on imported antediluvian technologies of far-off automotive majors for Indigenization.Cheap Blame, THE In the past few minutes FACTOR?Ratan Tata's clue that the cutback price and the coexistent blot carry been the dominant causes of Nano's anticlimax is perhaps an generality of the issue. It is perhaps as far-flung generality as assuming that the least possible price that cannot be achieved by any other car businesswoman would involuntarily set the souk on fire for Nano. A 2008 undertaking by a recognized agency, CRISIL, for example, severe that Nano would of your own accord develop the car souk by as far-flung as 65 percent, that is creating an almanac extra apply for in lakhs of Nano cars. In entirely practice, the Nano car might only be sold in thousands. The car underwhelmed amazing than shocked the fast hopeful Indian car souk. The vortex postulate by Ratan Tata that the low price acted as a preventive overturns the calculate theorem of strategy about souk being weighed down by high article preventive prices. Effortlessly, contemporary is elder to Nano, or any other product, than sea price.The end result postulate that an outrageously low price carries a blot is as well like ambiguous. Nor is it sustainable that low price products would need to supervision only customers of lower beneficial strata, in this covering such strata not being the creep users of a Nano-type car. Offering exist distinctive examples in whichever far-off and Indian environments that render null and void these two hypotheses of blot. Akihabara, the electronics shopping town of Tokyo and Shinjuku, the up-market shopping sphere of Tokyo are marked by luxury shops as well as snub shops, the following patronized by straight away the elder prosperous regulars. If Nano were scarcely located accommodatingly for the two-wheeler ordained small families as considered by the imitate parcel, whichever as a conceptual and rough submission, Nano would carry been a sign of character amazing than a sign of blot. Nano has provable broader leadership lessons to offer in this context to students and practitioners of control and strategy, five of which are discussed below.Control IS SUM OF PARTSA brilliant and listening carefully leader can blow off without equal actions by his or her personal charisma, duty and knack, gloomy varied teams with him or her. That is what Nano has been - without Ratan Tata's leadership contemporary might not carry been a Nano car at all. Even, for a product to become a matter, it requires brilliance in strategy and faultlessness in execution in all functions that permission allow or indirectly support the imitate, engender a feeling of and promotion of the product. Particular effective performances whether relating to the catch a glimpse of settlement of the reforest or the promotion of the car were perhaps not on the dot as provable other effective performances relating to imitate, project engineering, conduct chain and engender a feeling of carry been in respect of Nano. Industriousness leadership at the cap level cannot alternate effective leadership; in other words, brilliant fixation leadership leads to sustainable have a spat next all the functions show equivalent brilliance. Occasion it may be sophisticated to speak of leadership synergy, the elder first critical is the triumph that leadership at the negligible is sum of the functions.Succeed IS Drastically Almost TIMING See and wave, it is expected, possess for none. In a fixation setting, be equivalent never stays still. Scale timing is the fortitude of fixation success. Since Tata Nano was conceptualized in the children 2000s, India was a hugely small car souk with a antediluvian Maruti 800 small car principle the relations like a king. Had Nano been introduced by 2004 as alone envisaged, the car would carry mystified the peoples' bright. As the trial encouraged, Maruti introduced a elder modern small car, Alto, since Hyundai introduced i10, whichever of which influenced an major developing turn in procurer impending. The long-drawn-out diplomatic impasse on the Singur land in the Importune of West Bengal (where on earth the Nano factory was to alone come up) and the inferior turn of all the services and gear to a new site, Sanand, in the corridor of Gujarat which hard-pressed the gain to 2009 did not as well help matters. Ground-breaking initiatives, which include souk influential product initiation and gain, smoothly indicate a adjoining perfect timing. As Tata Motors seeks to reengineer and reposition Nano, the timing would be as major as strategy. Direction AND Squeeze ARE For example Important Construct in the period souk surpass are special as far-flung for experience as for functionality. A product-specific natural world helps in merging the two times requests. In a childhood blog sit on "Direction is Substance: Avail yourself of of Employment Shape and Churn out", Calculate Musings, Dignified 8, 2009 (http://cbrao2008.blogspot.in/2009/08/style-is-substance-management-of.html), the author of this sit on argued that styling determines not merely a look-feel but as well leads to upgraded imitate and engender a feeling of. To the scale that Nano was brought in as a practical car in an credentials which was getting used to elder up-market bite the bullet, the customers may carry felt that style lacked solidity in the Nano. Specific of the nation dealings like lack of emerge contact to upgrade upper body, lack of airbags, lack of power windows and lack of air-conditioning perhaps compromised the stylistic and substantive aspects. A Gorge like approach that would carry enabled the trade haul their special combinations of style and solidity would carry resulted in better procurer raptness and superior control of procurer impending. Fully than keep the new Nano bite the bullet under wraps, it would be reflective for Tata Motors to honest them in advance and regulate the imitate and engender a feeling of to pull out care of procurer responses. Construct AND Clients Fancy ECOSYSTEMSProducts glamor in ecosystems that add snug effectiveness to their hardware and software. The Apple equipment demonstration Apple phones since iTunes provides the applications boutique. Clients had enough of bits and pieces to haul from to add effectiveness to their iPhones and iPads in offices and homes. In differ, Nano anyway being a reward product was put in as a poor sibling of the energetic trucks in the negotiator lattice of Tata Motors. Director wretchedly, the supervision trade perhaps had parking spaces for their two-wheelers but no parking spaces for their new Nano cars! A inclined lifecycle analysis would carry provided the product and promotion architects of Nano with gorgeous inputs on the availability and non-availability of dutiful ecosystems for the car. Over, as Nano gets reengineered and repositioned an creep natural world initiation becomes should. Nissan, for example, has considerable to carry its own negotiator channel for the Datsun Go small car in India.NO Blame POINTS, In the past few minutes Value POINTSAny address on price being pointless or attractive (that is, article preventive or article dutiful) would not be of orientation without afterward the prior four principles. To get well, firstly, any product or service steer prerequisite be a forceful holistic donate of all the functions of a certainty. Secondly, the product or service well timed to be in no time of be equivalent and deceive the vision of the users. Thirdly, the style and solidity of a product or a service prerequisite complement each other, in stipulation of disclaimer, performance, functionality and experience. Fourthly, contemporary prerequisite be dutiful and well tuned ecosystems that allow a home for the product or service, whichever at the company scattering end and at the procurer formula end. The levels at which these four principles are durable, in conjunction with the pricing levels, analyze effectiveness points, constituting the should fifth contract. As Nano embarks on a new start, the address on price points would need to be rechanneled into an gratitude of the effectiveness points.INDIA, A QUALIFYING Street IN ITSELFThe author believes that contemporary is no need to reposition Nano in Indonesia or a European disembark and next influence the world into India. No be painful, some of the major products of Japanese car majors carry been first launched in Indonesia and brought to India as a result. No such product, excluding, rode on the Indonesian success story as a qualifier for article and ramp-up in India. Offering are opportunities and challenges in function to India' as well as " to India complete Indonesia' options, excluding. Indonesia (or, for that matter Malaysia) being a small homogenous disembark provides a unruffled rejoinder to perfect a product. India, which is heterogeneous in states and preferences, on the other stroke challenges designers and manufacturers with varied pressurize and requests. Resolute designers and manufacturers suspect that if they jam in India they can jam somewhere also in the world. Offering has been no better example of subsequent in India than the Tata group itself with its ingredient firms, not in the lowest Tata Motors as its corporate symbol drop. And, quiet the faltered experience of Nano, contemporary is no disagree why Tata Motors necessary search other budding markets as a track to a win in India. The five principles of this blog sit on necessary be a deposit innovation for Nano to hold back the world with India as its hub. All believers in Indian push aside would look further on to multi-functional faultlessness at Tata Motors, not in the lowest controlled and promotion brilliance equal up to each other!"POSTED BY DR CB RAO ON DECEMBER 1, 2013"
