The Little Zipcar Deal Dwarfs the Big Jaguar Sale

The cars can be rented on an hourly, daily or longer basis using the company's proprietary Z3D system, an electronically controlled communications platform employing the equivalent of a credit/ID card that automatically links consumer information to corporate monitors.

Zipcar members pay a set fee depending on how long they use a vehicle. The fee includes fuel and insurance costs. Because multiple Zipcar members conceivably could use the same vehicle for different purposes on the same day, the actual impact on urban congestion is the equivalent of 20 vehicles on the road eliminated for every one vehicle shared, Zipcar officials say.

"We're selling convenience to our customers," said Zipcar's chief operating officer, Mark Norman. The merger, he said, represents an "exponential expansion" of that convenience.

At the moment, Zipcar has to digest what it has consumed in the merger. That means the company plans to curb, for a while, any appetite it has for more expansion. But the evidence is that the car-sharing business has explosive growth potential, largely thanks to the ever-rising cost of vehicle ownership.

Currently, according to the American Automobile Association, it costs nearly $700 a month to operate a mid-size family car -- considering insurance, parking, fuel and other costs. Fuel accounts for about 20 percent of that monthly tab and is rising. Those costs make renting a car on an as-needed basis, even for an hour, more attractive to many consumers than car buying.

Globally there are an estimated 34 car-sharing companies, most of them tethered to urban areas, which means they are less likely to have fancy Jaguars or fuel-thirsty Land Rover sport-utility vehicles at the ready. But "less likely" does not mean impossible, or completely unavailable, Norman said.

Selling convenience means that Zipcar will try to meet varying transportation needs and desires, Norman said. That could mean a sport-utility vehicle where one is needed, or a more well-appointed sedan where that is desired. But usually, in the city, where most car sharing is done, it means the cars that can go the longest distance on the least amount of gas.