my name is Michael Fling and two years
ago I bought a car that’s not that
interesting is it Americans by car is
pretty much everyday how many here own
or lease a car Wow
quite a few of you does anyone have two
cars in their household okay
quite a few so that’s pretty much what
we do in America right we just keep
buying or leasing cars from the day that
we get our driver’s license until we’re
no longer able to drive we just it’s an
endless cycle it’s part of our culture
really but does it have to be so before
I bought my car I was car free for a
decade and I’ll have to tell you I
really struggled with this purchase it
led me to research this topic
obsessively actually and to try and find
out if it’s really necessary do I really
need to own a car and I came to a
surprising conclusion I really want to
share it with you I believe that the car
I have now will be the last car I ever
owned I don’t believe I’ll buy or lease
another car as long as I live and I can
prove it to you because of
sustainability economics and efficiency
let’s go back in history for a moment
over a hundred years ago Henry Ford
invented the Model T and basically
marketed it to every family in America
fast forward to today and the car is
virtually synonymous with mobility in
America there are now 1.2 billion cars
in the world I call this the car
ownership model so this model has driven
our economy for years and it’s created
millions of jobs and its really shaped
our whole identity but there’s a problem
it’s not really sustainable so this
slide shows the vehicle ownership rates
in the US and in the world the blue line
is the US where we currently have
800 cars per 1000 people and the red
line is the rest of the world which is a
on average about a hundred and eighty
cars per 1000 people now if the rest of
the world starts to own cars at the same
rate as United States there’s gonna be
six billion cars in the world that’s
over five times the number of cars that
we have on the planet today and you know
in the emerging middle classes in India
and China heavily populated countries if
they start owning cars at this rate
there’s gonna be a huge demand for steel
rubber and all the other raw materials
are going to making cars not to mention
the pollution carbon emissions and
everything else that these cars will
generate it will make our air
unbreathable and drastically exacerbate
climate change but there’s good news we
don’t actually need all those cars so
how many people drive their car an hour
per day anyone two hours three hours so
the statistics show on average we spend
about an hour and a half in our car each
day and that works out to be about six
percent of the time we spend actually
using our car for its intended purpose
the rest of the time ninety-four percent
of the time that car is just sitting
there underutilized rusting depreciating
parked costing us money really that’s
not the only problem with the the car
ownership model there’s also the cost of
a car the American Automobile
Association estimates that the average
American spends eight thousand six
hundred ninety eight dollars per year on
their cars that’s uh insurance
depreciation finance charges gas all
those things and that works out to be
about twenty three dollars per day if
you do the math now that doesn’t even
include parking believe it or not and
parking is a huge expense in urban areas
like like ours
not to mention parking is also a hassle
so if you live in an area like Jersey
City you probably can’t get the kind of
parking you want when you want it even
if you’re willing to pay for it
case in point my wife and I we park our
car on the street pretty much out of
necessity and we have a rule once we
cart once we park our car for the night
we don’t move it because we will lose
our spot we could rent a reserved
parking spot near our house it would
probably cost about $250 per month and I
don’t think there’s even really one
available so what we do instead is we
take an uber or a lyft whenever we have
an evening appointment and you know what
it’s actually cheaper and I the most
frustrating thing about parking is when
I go out on my street and I look at all
the underutilized cars out there I think
to myself wow you know what if every one
of these cars was a shared car would we
ever have a problem with parking you
know studies show that one shared car
can actually remove nine personally
owned cars from the road so you have to
ask ourselves do we really have a
problem with parking is there a parking
shortage or do we just have too many
cars in fact traffic is a stressor as
well and as many as thirty percent of
the traffic going in in urban areas is
just people driving around looking for a
parking so and traffic can ruin a whole
weekend if you don’t plan for it right
so we have all these negatives about the
car ownership model so we have to go
back and ask ourselves what are we
really trying to achieve what is our
goal with owning these cars why do we
own cars and I think people have a lot
of different answers for that but I
think they boil down basically to three
categories number one we need to get
places some trips just require a car and
there’s no way around it we also need
the convenience right we have to be able
to get places easily we don’t always
have time to wait for an off
keek train or a weekend bus and we want
the freedom we want to be able to just
pick up and go and not have to plan
weeks in advance for a particular trip
well I think the car-sharing model can
actually get us to those three goals at
a lower cost and more sustainably and
even with more freedom than what the car
ownership model allows so let’s explore
a few use cases so let’s say there’s an
urbanite who uses public transit for
their commute and they’re a casual car
user they own a car because they want to
go to the beach or go apple picking
sometimes but they might be paying up to
nine hundred and seventy five dollars
for that you know trip to the beach per
month so if they don’t if they let’s say
they get rid of their car there’s a
short-term car rental a zip car or Maven
which can allow you to rent a car
on-demand for about three hundred and
four dollars per month you could take
for full-day rentals right now let’s go
to the next case an urbanite who is
maybe a little bit more heavy car user
this one might this may be you take a
lot of trips a lot of short errands you
run a lot of errands in town or you hop
around a lot so there’s a new kind of
car sharing that’s not available in
Jersey City yet but in it’s available in
Brooklyn and Austin San Francisco some
of the other cities and it’s called one
way car sharing what it allows you to do
is take a car from point A to point B
and you don’t have to return the car
from point B back to point a you can
just leave it at point B so this makes
car sharing a lot more useful for things
like commuting where you go from point A
to point B and you have to go to work
for 8 hours with a zip car you have to
pay for those eight hours with the
one-way car sharing you don’t pay for
those eight hours you just stop paying
as soon as you finish your trip right so
for $300 per month that can get you 12
hours in a car which is significant
because remember you’re only paying for
time that you’re actually driving the
car and if you want to stretch that
dollar even further get a bike share
pass so on nice days when you don’t have
a heavy load to carry you could just
take a bike that could be the
significant in terms of the savings now
there’s the other use case for driving
adverse commuter right this transit
doesn’t work for them but they really
don’t really like to drive they want to
be able to get out to their job and
they’d rather be doing something while
they’re driving they’re you know what
when they when they when they were when
they’re driving they’d rather they doing
something else so there’s a truck the
stress of traffic so those are worth you
know that’s worth some money in terms of
if I’m able to work on my commute I can
get some value for that time and there’s
solutions coming to the market for this
as well so imagine a minibus or a jitney
like the ones that we have on palisade
Avenue in New York Avenue that are
ordered up by your smart phone so if
there’s 20 people in Jersey City who all
commute to the same suburban office park
in Central Jersey those 20 people would
be matched together by the app and
brought on a jitney bus out to their job
that allows you to monetize the time
that you’re spending on your commute and
and makes it so you don’t have to
actually deal with traffic so these
services are called bridge it’s in
Boston chariot is in Austin and some
other cities and these are coming soon
now if your community’s a little bit
shorter you might consider an uber pool
or a lyft line probably some of you have
done that before
and I commute by a city bike to work and
an uber pool a lot of times when it’s
raining might be only four dollars which
you know the path is what 375 to 75 and
there are future options coming to where
uber and lyft imagine non-professional
drivers who just want to carpool with
other people as a potential source of
these trips so that could also of course
your mileage may vary depending on your
situation but it can also result in
significant savings now there’s there’s
people out there like this and I
I can tell because I can see your white
knuckles and I can see your teeth
clenching you’re the car attached right
you’re saying to yourself no one’s
taking my car unless it’s from my cold
dead hands right so you’re the most
interesting use case but I think car
sharing works for you as well there’s a
service in San Francisco and other
cities called get around which puts a
device in your car that turns your car
into a shared car into a rentable asset
it’s kind of like Airbnb for cars and it
lets anyone come up to your car and use
their smartphone to rent your car now
don’t worry there’s insurance so anyone
messes it up and it’s it’s kind of like
Airbnb for cars but this way you could
actually realize some savings like $225
per month if you were to rent out your
car five days if your car is a little
bit more luxury it could be even more
than that there are people who have
bought Tesla’s and paid their entire
Tesla bill just by renting out their car
through this service so it makes you
wonder right if everyone did that then
every car actually could be a shared car
so at some point we’ll reach a tipping
point the point at which and it’s a
steep climb to get there as you can see
the point at which it’s more convenient
to car share instead of car posess is
coming and it’s coming soon now you
don’t have to take my word for it the
CEO of General Motors Mary Barra said
that the auto industry will experience
more change in the next five to ten
years than we’ve experienced in the past
50 so that point is coming and it’s
coming sooner than you think now you may
be wondering why did you a
self-professed car sharing geek why did
you buy a car two years ago right but
you can see the answer is car seats I
have two young kids and no one has
invented a car seat that’s convenient
for daily car sharing so it remains to
be seen how that problem
solved but once it does I’ll be your
customer so what’s the point of all this
what am i trying to just say here I
think I’m just asking try it if you’re
concerned about pollution carbon
emissions the environment try it if
you’re fed up with parking and traffic
try it if you want to save some money
and you’re concerned about your finances
try it and if you want to be a better
steward of the world’s resources try it
don’t worry you’ll still be able to go
where you want to go but these options
are coming and they’re coming sooner
than you think
so go share thank you
ago I bought a car that’s not that
interesting is it Americans by car is
pretty much everyday how many here own
or lease a car Wow
quite a few of you does anyone have two
cars in their household okay
quite a few so that’s pretty much what
we do in America right we just keep
buying or leasing cars from the day that
we get our driver’s license until we’re
no longer able to drive we just it’s an
endless cycle it’s part of our culture
really but does it have to be so before
I bought my car I was car free for a
decade and I’ll have to tell you I
really struggled with this purchase it
led me to research this topic
obsessively actually and to try and find
out if it’s really necessary do I really
need to own a car and I came to a
surprising conclusion I really want to
share it with you I believe that the car
I have now will be the last car I ever
owned I don’t believe I’ll buy or lease
another car as long as I live and I can
prove it to you because of
sustainability economics and efficiency
let’s go back in history for a moment
over a hundred years ago Henry Ford
invented the Model T and basically
marketed it to every family in America
fast forward to today and the car is
virtually synonymous with mobility in
America there are now 1.2 billion cars
in the world I call this the car
ownership model so this model has driven
our economy for years and it’s created
millions of jobs and its really shaped
our whole identity but there’s a problem
it’s not really sustainable so this
slide shows the vehicle ownership rates
in the US and in the world the blue line
is the US where we currently have
800 cars per 1000 people and the red
line is the rest of the world which is a
on average about a hundred and eighty
cars per 1000 people now if the rest of
the world starts to own cars at the same
rate as United States there’s gonna be
six billion cars in the world that’s
over five times the number of cars that
we have on the planet today and you know
in the emerging middle classes in India
and China heavily populated countries if
they start owning cars at this rate
there’s gonna be a huge demand for steel
rubber and all the other raw materials
are going to making cars not to mention
the pollution carbon emissions and
everything else that these cars will
generate it will make our air
unbreathable and drastically exacerbate
climate change but there’s good news we
don’t actually need all those cars so
how many people drive their car an hour
per day anyone two hours three hours so
the statistics show on average we spend
about an hour and a half in our car each
day and that works out to be about six
percent of the time we spend actually
using our car for its intended purpose
the rest of the time ninety-four percent
of the time that car is just sitting
there underutilized rusting depreciating
parked costing us money really that’s
not the only problem with the the car
ownership model there’s also the cost of
a car the American Automobile
Association estimates that the average
American spends eight thousand six
hundred ninety eight dollars per year on
their cars that’s uh insurance
depreciation finance charges gas all
those things and that works out to be
about twenty three dollars per day if
you do the math now that doesn’t even
include parking believe it or not and
parking is a huge expense in urban areas
like like ours
not to mention parking is also a hassle
so if you live in an area like Jersey
City you probably can’t get the kind of
parking you want when you want it even
if you’re willing to pay for it
case in point my wife and I we park our
car on the street pretty much out of
necessity and we have a rule once we
cart once we park our car for the night
we don’t move it because we will lose
our spot we could rent a reserved
parking spot near our house it would
probably cost about $250 per month and I
don’t think there’s even really one
available so what we do instead is we
take an uber or a lyft whenever we have
an evening appointment and you know what
it’s actually cheaper and I the most
frustrating thing about parking is when
I go out on my street and I look at all
the underutilized cars out there I think
to myself wow you know what if every one
of these cars was a shared car would we
ever have a problem with parking you
know studies show that one shared car
can actually remove nine personally
owned cars from the road so you have to
ask ourselves do we really have a
problem with parking is there a parking
shortage or do we just have too many
cars in fact traffic is a stressor as
well and as many as thirty percent of
the traffic going in in urban areas is
just people driving around looking for a
parking so and traffic can ruin a whole
weekend if you don’t plan for it right
so we have all these negatives about the
car ownership model so we have to go
back and ask ourselves what are we
really trying to achieve what is our
goal with owning these cars why do we
own cars and I think people have a lot
of different answers for that but I
think they boil down basically to three
categories number one we need to get
places some trips just require a car and
there’s no way around it we also need
the convenience right we have to be able
to get places easily we don’t always
have time to wait for an off
keek train or a weekend bus and we want
the freedom we want to be able to just
pick up and go and not have to plan
weeks in advance for a particular trip
well I think the car-sharing model can
actually get us to those three goals at
a lower cost and more sustainably and
even with more freedom than what the car
ownership model allows so let’s explore
a few use cases so let’s say there’s an
urbanite who uses public transit for
their commute and they’re a casual car
user they own a car because they want to
go to the beach or go apple picking
sometimes but they might be paying up to
nine hundred and seventy five dollars
for that you know trip to the beach per
month so if they don’t if they let’s say
they get rid of their car there’s a
short-term car rental a zip car or Maven
which can allow you to rent a car
on-demand for about three hundred and
four dollars per month you could take
for full-day rentals right now let’s go
to the next case an urbanite who is
maybe a little bit more heavy car user
this one might this may be you take a
lot of trips a lot of short errands you
run a lot of errands in town or you hop
around a lot so there’s a new kind of
car sharing that’s not available in
Jersey City yet but in it’s available in
Brooklyn and Austin San Francisco some
of the other cities and it’s called one
way car sharing what it allows you to do
is take a car from point A to point B
and you don’t have to return the car
from point B back to point a you can
just leave it at point B so this makes
car sharing a lot more useful for things
like commuting where you go from point A
to point B and you have to go to work
for 8 hours with a zip car you have to
pay for those eight hours with the
one-way car sharing you don’t pay for
those eight hours you just stop paying
as soon as you finish your trip right so
for $300 per month that can get you 12
hours in a car which is significant
because remember you’re only paying for
time that you’re actually driving the
car and if you want to stretch that
dollar even further get a bike share
pass so on nice days when you don’t have
a heavy load to carry you could just
take a bike that could be the
significant in terms of the savings now
there’s the other use case for driving
adverse commuter right this transit
doesn’t work for them but they really
don’t really like to drive they want to
be able to get out to their job and
they’d rather be doing something while
they’re driving they’re you know what
when they when they when they were when
they’re driving they’d rather they doing
something else so there’s a truck the
stress of traffic so those are worth you
know that’s worth some money in terms of
if I’m able to work on my commute I can
get some value for that time and there’s
solutions coming to the market for this
as well so imagine a minibus or a jitney
like the ones that we have on palisade
Avenue in New York Avenue that are
ordered up by your smart phone so if
there’s 20 people in Jersey City who all
commute to the same suburban office park
in Central Jersey those 20 people would
be matched together by the app and
brought on a jitney bus out to their job
that allows you to monetize the time
that you’re spending on your commute and
and makes it so you don’t have to
actually deal with traffic so these
services are called bridge it’s in
Boston chariot is in Austin and some
other cities and these are coming soon
now if your community’s a little bit
shorter you might consider an uber pool
or a lyft line probably some of you have
done that before
and I commute by a city bike to work and
an uber pool a lot of times when it’s
raining might be only four dollars which
you know the path is what 375 to 75 and
there are future options coming to where
uber and lyft imagine non-professional
drivers who just want to carpool with
other people as a potential source of
these trips so that could also of course
your mileage may vary depending on your
situation but it can also result in
significant savings now there’s there’s
people out there like this and I
I can tell because I can see your white
knuckles and I can see your teeth
clenching you’re the car attached right
you’re saying to yourself no one’s
taking my car unless it’s from my cold
dead hands right so you’re the most
interesting use case but I think car
sharing works for you as well there’s a
service in San Francisco and other
cities called get around which puts a
device in your car that turns your car
into a shared car into a rentable asset
it’s kind of like Airbnb for cars and it
lets anyone come up to your car and use
their smartphone to rent your car now
don’t worry there’s insurance so anyone
messes it up and it’s it’s kind of like
Airbnb for cars but this way you could
actually realize some savings like $225
per month if you were to rent out your
car five days if your car is a little
bit more luxury it could be even more
than that there are people who have
bought Tesla’s and paid their entire
Tesla bill just by renting out their car
through this service so it makes you
wonder right if everyone did that then
every car actually could be a shared car
so at some point we’ll reach a tipping
point the point at which and it’s a
steep climb to get there as you can see
the point at which it’s more convenient
to car share instead of car posess is
coming and it’s coming soon now you
don’t have to take my word for it the
CEO of General Motors Mary Barra said
that the auto industry will experience
more change in the next five to ten
years than we’ve experienced in the past
50 so that point is coming and it’s
coming sooner than you think now you may
be wondering why did you a
self-professed car sharing geek why did
you buy a car two years ago right but
you can see the answer is car seats I
have two young kids and no one has
invented a car seat that’s convenient
for daily car sharing so it remains to
be seen how that problem
solved but once it does I’ll be your
customer so what’s the point of all this
what am i trying to just say here I
think I’m just asking try it if you’re
concerned about pollution carbon
emissions the environment try it if
you’re fed up with parking and traffic
try it if you want to save some money
and you’re concerned about your finances
try it and if you want to be a better
steward of the world’s resources try it
don’t worry you’ll still be able to go
where you want to go but these options
are coming and they’re coming sooner
than you think
so go share thank you
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