Legacy costs, and declining revenue due to foreign competition and the recession of 2008-2009 led to substantial losses for the Big Three, and forced GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy. To raise cash, the companies gave up ownership to unions and governments, and sold or cancelled nameplates. The federal Cash for Clunkers program stimulated sales in July and August by cannibalizing September’s demand, which sank to less than half the 17 million rate the industry had enjoyed for the past decade.

This past two weeks, I’ve used:

• a Prius to get groceries and dinner
• a Civic to check out an apartment in SF
• a 328i to check out an apartment in SF and visit Golden Gate Park
• a Nissan Versa to get groceries and go up to Mount Diablo to check for some of this week’s meteor shower action
• a Honda Odyssey to move from Berkeley to a new apartment in SF
• a Mini to get back over to Oakland for a Saturday homebrew BBQ

There are two ZipCar lots within two blocks from my new location in the city. The credit card style swipe is ingenious. I’ve called customer service twice and was able to talk to real human beings right away.

I can roughly quantify the opportunity to save money that I’ve created by switching from my car to ZipCar.

Assuming an average hourly cost of $10 (including SF 9.5% tax and the 10% EVP discount), I’ll save money in any month that I use ZipCar fewer than 50 hours. That seems like more than enough driving for me. The potential savings could be much higher with other people. I had access to cheap loans and cheap insurance, and I did repair work myself, so car ownership was relatively affordable for me. ZipCar is better though, because of the flexibility and simplicity I now enjoy.