Car-Sharing options just got a WHOLE lot better (and therefore options for many people to get rid of their current cars without completely sacrificing car access just got better).

Peer to peer carsharing is this new model. The basic idea is you can rent out your own car when you’re not needing it, or others can borrow someone else’s car when they need it — but there’s a solid structure for scheduling, insurance, and other carsharing issues.

Using carsharing services costs much less than owning a car for many situations. And lending your car through a peer-to-peer carsharing program can offset costs for car owners.

The two prime service providers right now are RelayRides and Getaround. After an initial glance, I vastly prefer RelayRides simply because they provide a lot of information upfront. With Getaround you have to join in order to actually find out any details about the program – and to join you have to give them access to your Facebook account. Even if they’re not doing anything nefarious, it hits all the right warning signs to keep me away. RelayRides on other hand provides a bunch of FAQs and information about how they work up front.

The only drawback? The services only appear to available in a few select cities so far. I’ve contacted RelayRides to find out what their criteria are for entering a new market, so we can get it started here in Motown. If I get useful info, I’ll post it here.

After starting Motor City CarShare last decade (and then watching it fizzle out because it was the wrong fit of carshare model to local context and frankly being just about 4 years too early for Detroit but that’s a whole other story) I got a lot of questions from folks about how to set up something a little simpler that allowed them to do carsharing but with their own cars or with friends. While these new services aren’t quite the same thing, they’re a big step closer to that model and open a whole new field of options for folks interested in carsharing.

I’ve been doing a bunch of research lately on electric vehicles to see what might make sense for us at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage for our vehicle co-op. For 12 years we have been focusing on biodiesel and vegetable oil based fuels but things have not always been smooth. The main issues have been related to winter fuel gelling and fuel filters clogging in general. We’ve also never gotten a steady system for  collection of used oil and production going, so we have been using biodiesel made from new veggie oil which is only marginally better for the environment than petroleum.

We are now embarking on a major re-evaluation of vehicle technologies for our co-op, with a team researching things like electric vehicles, hybrids, ethanol (including home made, potentially from cellulose), bio-gas, wood-gas, human and animal powered, and any new technologies in the veggie oil world.

My interest in electric vehicles (EVs) has come out of my research into a village-wide electric power co-op with a largish wind turbine to power our whole village. With an abundant source of renewable electricity, EVs could be our most ecological option. There are ecological issues related to batteries of course, but my research shows that EVs are a net benefit over petro based vehicles and on par with other bio-fueled options currently or soon to be available (more on that in a post soon).

Of course the main issue with EVs is about range – how far you can drive on a single charge. Most all-electric vehicles (sometimes called Battery Electric Vehicles or BEVs to distinguish them from hybrids) still have ranges in the 80-100 mile range. That range is great for most folks daily commuting needs, but our rural location means many or even most of our trips are 80-150 miles.

A further complication, is that a 100 mile advertised range does not always mean you can drive 100 miles. Accessories like A/C, heat, lights, etc. can reduce your range. Higher speeds and hills also reduce range (and while we don’t have mountains we do have hills). Winter temps can also reduce battery capacity and range.  It also matters how you drive – fast acceleration and breaking are inefficient.

So what are our options?

In the All Electric Category I found the following vehicles available now or in the next 18 months.

The most appealing for us would be the Tesla Sedan because of the extended range it can provide. The price tag is pretty high though. The Nissan LEAF is definitely more affordable, but its unclear if it would really get us where we need to go (and back that is). The CODA is still limited in its availability.

For folks living in suburban or urban areas with shorter commutes I think a lot of these options would work great.

I also looked into Plug-in Hybrids such as the upcoming Chevy Volt and the 2011 Plug-in Prius as well as the various Prius Plug-in conversion kits.

The Volt is expected to have a 40 mile electric range and get 50 mpg once the gasoline (or E85) engine kicks in.  The 2011 Prius will have only a 15 mile electric range and also get around 50 mpg. With a Prius Plug in conversion you can get electric ranges of 25-50 miles before it goes back into hybrid modde and gets 46-50 mpg (depending on model year).

Its too bad the electric range on these hybrids is so short. If you could get something with an 80 mile range and a gasoline/diesel back up that would really work well for us and for a lot of people I would think. Obviously the cost and weight of having a big battery pack and a gas engine is probably the issue.

I’m expecting that once these EVs are available,  someone will come up with an aftermarket add on battery pack to increase the range, just like there are plug-in Prius kits. That could be just the ticket and demonstrate the demand for EVs with a bigger range.