It looks like GM is playing an important role in the growth of RelayRides, which announced earlier this month that it is expanding its service nationwide. And the question that comes in mind is why GM is doing it? Did the company forget it makes money from selling more cars, not less? Here are four possible explanations for GM’s growing involvement with the peer-to-peer sharing service.

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The sharing economy is usually identified with the 99 percent. Think Airbnb, BookMooch or Freecycle. You probably won’t find the 1 percent crashing in a spare room or scoring a free microwave. These rich people don’t have the need or will to share resources, right? Well, they actually do. Apparently, the 1 percent is interested [...]

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Have you ever shared a car ride, lent someone a book, made a mix tape, or traded clothing? Then you’re part of the WEconomy, a new economic model where communities of consumers share, swap or rent goods as opposed to owning them.

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On a survey published earlier this year by NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission, 31.3% of the respondents picked the Taxi TV as the worst thing about cab riding today. Although so many New Yorkers hate these TV sets, the commission’s reply is actually adding another channel with more shopping and cooking shows. Maybe the commission [...]

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Last week, Zipcar, Inc, along with the City of Baltimore and the Parking Authority of Baltimore City celebrated the one-year anniversary of Zipcar’s operations in the city with the release of survey results documenting the program’s impact. Zipcar’s expansion to Baltimore was part of a plan to reduce parking demand, congestion, and emissions, while offering citizens affordable personal transportation.

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On April 13th, Zipcar, the well-known, and wildly popular, car-sharing company, was celebrating a key milestone in every start-up’s growth: a very successful initial pubic offering (IPO) of its stock, to the tune of $180 million raised. By the next day, the company’s stock was up to $28 per share, a rise of 60%, over [...]

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Forget about a cup of sugar, your neighbor might just be eyeing your ride, instead. And thanks to a crop of car-sharing services that put a twist on the Zipcar model, you may soon be able to pimp out your Plymouth. RelayRides, a Boston-based startup, announced this week that it is expanding its car-sharing service [...]

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This post is part of a year-end series by MBA students at California College of the Arts’ Design MBA Program. Read more about our annual partnership here. Oversimplified and Out of Touch, Current Advertising Lacks the ‘Nutritional Value’ Consumers Are Desperate For By Valerie Neumark When I think of “going on a binge” it usually [...]

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Zipcar has certainly been busy, zipping this way and that as the company expands dramatically. Earlier this month, Zipcar announced expanded services to another 31 college and university campuses in the U.S, bringing its presence to more than 225 institutions in total. That gives the company a potential reach of 1.7 million students and staff.

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What do eBay, Zipcar, Craigslist, Kiva and timeshare real estate have in common?  They all represent businesses that harness the power of collaborative consumption, or simply put, sharing.  But this is not playing nice in the sandbox, rather, it is tracked and coordinated sharing on a global scale.  Large scale sharing creates a more sustainable [...]

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The two keynote sessions at the LOHAS Forum here in Boulder, Colo., Thursday morning conveyed two main themes–or rather, warnings. The first was that the big green consumer ark is about to set sail, but the companies that steer it might not be the grassroots LOHAS brands in the audience. Instead, massive multinational companies–like the [...]

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Just when you thought the car-sharing business couldn’t get any hotter, Zipcar has announced plans for an IPO worth as much as $75 Million, reports the Boston Globe. Already the largest car sharing company in the US (and one of the only for-profits), the company plans to use proceeds to take care of debt, though [...]

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How much of a role should business play in tackling global questions such as climate change, unemployment, restoring trust in the aftermath of the financial crisis and distributing international aid?  What is the nature and extent of the private sector’s responsibility in resolving these issues? At what point should corporations step alongside government and help [...]

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It’s hard not to see the flurry of activity preceding Dec 2010’s slated electric vehicle launches as an expression of joyous excitement. A range of stakeholders are taking action, and coordinating to prepare for widespread electric vehicle ownership. But are they in fact preparing for a new Golden Age in transportation, for the most significant [...]

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