the cost of zipping....

Figure 1: The Cost of Zipping (actual monetary cost removed for privacy reasons)

I've been a religious Zipcar member since circa 2002. For urban dwellers like me, it's just a really great concept. For those of you unfamiliar with it, Zipcar is basically in the business of commoditizing car usage. What's the big deal? Haven't rental car agencies been doing this for years? Zipcar does it with a twist - they focus specifically on highly urban areas (San Francisco, Boston, Toronto, DC, and of course, New York).
Here's how it works:

• You, the zipcar member, get a magnetic zipcard
  
• Get on the web at zipcar.com, and reserve one of their cars that are strategically parked at locations throughout the city - a few of which are bound to be near your place of residence or work.
  
• Go to the parking facility where your zipcar is parked when your reservation is scheduled to start
  
• Swipe your zipcard at the magnetic detector on the other side of the windshield of your reserved zipcar
  
• Drive.
  
• (And return the car back to where you picked it up before your reservation ends).
  

Unbelievably convenient, not to mention, they will also pay for:

• insurance (bundled into the rental cost)
  
• parking (they pay for the costs at the parking facilities where the zipcars live)
  
• gas (yep, they pay for gas too)
  

Pretty cool, and actually very economical since those costs alone are exorbitant enough to make owning and maintaining a car in a major metropolis prohibitive.

... Or is it? The chart in Figure 1 above is a chart I whipped up in Excel with the monthly Zipcar bill (monthly) used as data points - and the black trendline being a 12-month moving average. (The actual monetary cost has been removed for privacy reasons), but you get the general idea from the data points and lines of the chart.

The average monthly cost, especially with the latest apparent trend of not driving so much, is still actually less than the costs of insurance, parking, and gas associated with owning a car where I live. The moving average is still a bit high, but I guess we'll see if the trend of not spending so much on the car continues in 2007. One point to consider regarding the (very) high usage in the first quarter of 2006 is that it was completely associated with wedding preparations during that time.

Every time I start daydreaming and hit websites for BMW, Audi, Porsche, Infiniti.... I just stare at this chart. And think. And breathe.
Sigh...