Car Free – Day 50
I don’t own a car. Okay I lied – I own a fleet of over 200 cars. Okay I lied again – I am a part-owner of a fleet of over 200 cars. Yes, I joined the Co-operative Auto Network back in October (CAN for short). It was a sensible decision – my brother needed a car but didn’t have one; I had a car but didn’t really need it, except for social outings. So, Alfredmobile was passed on to him.
(For your refernece, Alfredmobile is (was, haha) a ’99 Honda Civic Special Edition. Air-conditioning and keyless entry. Not too many kilometres but its been in a few random bing-bongs.)
As of today, I’ve had more than a month of CAN experience. Here is my take of it so far. You very likely have different driving needs, so your mileage will vary (figuratively and literally).
What are my transportation needs? I walk to work. During the week, I have my salsa classes. And of course, there is the going out on the weekend with friends and such. I should also note that my company will reimburse up to $70 for my transit pass purchase if I do not drive to work.
So how often do I need a vehicle? Two or three times a week; once during the week for a salsa class and once on the weekend for a late night out.
How much does it cost? You can check out the website for the exact pricing details. November cost me about $270 (for 8 bookings of various lengths, one cancelled booking, administration fee, and taxes). Note that I get reinbursed when I fill up the car so the actual statement I got last month is less the cost of the fillups.
How do I pick up the vehicles? The cars are scattered through out the city in “secret” locations. When you are finished, you have to return the car to the original location. Whenever I pick up a car, I imagine James Bond music playing while Q explains the features of the vehicle I am about to pick up. My only real complaint is that I am a good 15 minute walk away from the closest car; Burnaby is not as well covered as Vancouver.
Are there really Mini Coopers in the fleet? Yes, but I am actually starting to take fancy to a Hyundai Sonata. Note that there are quite a variety of cars in the fleet from old to new; from big to small. Usually you would want to go for the one closest to where you live, but sometimes I go the extra mile to pick up a particular car (say a certain red Mini).
How does this compare to when I still owned Alfredmobile? One year’s car insurance was $1611 for leisure use only. I remember gas ended up being $50 a month or so, but then again that was when gas was still more than $1 a litre. Also, having a car meant that I deliberately drove more. Besides this, there is the 3 to 4 times a year of car maintenance, which I would estimate at $1500 for the year. (I got new tires for Alfredmobile this summer). So operating Alfredmobile for a year cost $3711 at these estimates. This is conservative as I do not consider depreciation, which is not so much for this older vehicle. A year in the Car Co-Op cost $3240 a year based on my November usage. This is not really a scientific comparison, as my car usage pattern is different in the two cases. Also, there is actually quite a lot of variance in both of these estimates, but overall I would consider the pure dollar costs to be in the same ballpark.
What is my transportation profile like, now that I don’t have a regular car? I do a mix of public transit and co-op car during the week, depending on my destination and what time of night I plan to get home from whatever party I am at. Again, work and grocery shopping is just walking distance from my home.
How do I like it? I am loving it. I have to be honest - Alfredmobile is starting to show its age and I’ve been lusting for a newer vehicle for the last while. I like that I don’t have to worry about oil-changes and other things like that. I like the mental lightness of not owning a vehicle.
Are you sure you like it? Well, there was this one time I got a car that was in a secluded location. It was probably not a good idea to be returning it in the middle of the night. Did I mention that it was in the heart of crow territory? I have never seen such a dense concentration of crows in my entire life. I kept imagining my bloodied body being pecked at by a zillion crows. By the way, this would explain why this car was covered in bird-poo. Crow-poo if you want to get technical. Other than that one particular occasion, it has been pretty peachy.
Am I going to keep it up? Cost-wise, this is about what I am expecting. As long as I am having fun with this, I will keep my membership. (Or more precisely, when I get fed up with not having a car when I need it, that’s when I’ll get one.) I do enjoy the occasional bus & skytrain ride so this is pretty good for me.
Joining the car co-op isn’t for everyone; I recognize this so I am not making as strong of a sales pitch here. On the whole, I am pleased that this has worked out for me.
December 25th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Very cool! I joined ZipCar last year and it was really fun to try all the different types of car (they’re in Vancouver now too). Nice to see car sharing catching on.
December 30th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Hey Alfred, thank you for this post. I’ve been going back to (just) thinking about joining the co-op for years now. It should really push me over now that I know that one of the locations is across the street from me, as close as my parking garage! For an errand where I need a car, I can see it being useful. Zipcar dings you so much per hour. Does CAN charge by the hour? My other usage would be to drive myself to a social outing and just parking the car all night.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
http://www.cooperativeauto.net/pricing/can_membership/
I’m looking at the prices for the full membership ($500 co-op share + $20 admin fee to join).
The per hour charge of $2.50; there is no hourly charge between 11pm and 7am. This is to a maximum of $30 a day.
And then the kilometre charges & admin fees:
* Higher Usage (251+ km):
o $40.00 monthly admin fee
o 18¢ for every kilometre driven.
* Moderate Usage (81 – 250 km):
o $15.00 monthly admin fee
o 28¢ for every kilometre driven.
* Lower Usage (1 – 81 km):
o $6.25 monthly admin fee
o 38¢ for every kilometre driven.
* Zero-on-Zero (0 km):
o No charge in months when you don’t drive!
And then there is the taxes, fuel surcharge (extra 3.4 cents per km for November) which depends on how crazy the gas prices get and varies month to month.
If you live walking distance from one & you’re going out partying at night, then you might just book it until 7am then return it like 3am or 4am depending. At the top of the page, they have 3 typical bookings (haha, third date) – so you can get an idea of what the costs would be like per trip.