Avis to Buy Zipcar for $500 Million

[Redfairen]

Source: NY Times

The Avis Budget Group said on Wednesday that it had agreed to acquire the car-sharing pioneer Zipcar for $500 million in cash.

The deal represents a new direction for Avis in the fiercely competitive car rental market. Rivals Hertz Global and Enterprise each have hourly rental operations that compete with Zipcar. These rentals tend to have younger, more urban customers than traditional business or leisure travelers. And the Zipcar acquisition comes just months after Hertz clinched a takeover of Dollar Thrifty Automotive group.

“We see car sharing as highly complementary to traditional car rental, with rapid growth potential and representing a scalable opportunity for us as a combined company,” Ronald L. Nelson, Avis’s chief executive, said in a statement.

Founded in 2000, Zipcar says it has more than 760,000 members, referred to as Zipsters. It is in 20 metropolitan areas in the United States, Canada and Europe, as well as located near many college campuses.

Read more: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/avis-to-buy-zipcar-for-500-million/

[leftynyc]

1. Watch the price

for this excellent service go through the roof. I know many people who use Zipcar - they're young and don't have a lot of money but need a car every now and again. A huge company like Avis can only screw this up

[beardedcollie]

6. My Fear Too

In my neighborhood, it can take an hour to find a parking space or a large monthly fee to rent a space. Zip Car was pure genius. I will keep my fingers crossed

[democrattotheend]

7. It's already too expensive to be worth it

Every time I have looked into using Zipcar, the price was just too high to make it worth it. If you could return a car to a different location than where you picked it up it might be worth it, but since you can't, you have to pay for all the hours it sits idle. And even for short trips like to the grocery store, the $8-10/hr for Zipcar outweighs any savings over just going to the local mini mart and paying a little more for the groceries.

It's a good idea in theory, but too expensive to really be worth it, IMO.

[leftynyc]

8. The people I know that use it

use it for visiting their grandparents in the suburbs, taking a trip to costco (usually at least two different households who go together) so it's like a once-a-month thing. Way cheaper than renting a car. I don't think it's really big enough yet to be able to drop off in different locations

[markpkessinger]

10. Hertz's hourly rental allows dropoff in a different location n/t

[CreekDog]

11. so what? Hertz will still be around, but Zipcar will be gone and with it, another option

right now, you can use Hertz, Avis and Zipcar and the one that offers you the best option for your needs is what you can choose from.

once Zipcar is gone, you'll have one less option, and one less *type* of option.

how is that better?

[onehandle]

2. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

What bullshit.

[Cal Carpenter]

3. And another one bites the dust...

Ain't capitalism grand?

[Earth_First]

4. Goodbye, Zipcar!

:sigh:

[AZ Progressive]

5. Small Businesses nowadays are nothing more

than ways for people to get rich by developing them very good, good enough to fetch top dollar by the big corporations, and then the entrepreneur sells them to a big corporation and moves on (or lowers their role in the company), and the original company or service starts to decline.

Ok, I hate to generalize but I've seen this happen many times, entrepreneurs that don't care about selling out their company and thus screwing their customers eventually, all because of the multi millions they are paid by the big corporations.

[BigDemVoter]

9. Oh, hell, that's too GODDAMN bad!!!

Those assholes are going to RUIN this wonderful company! Prices will sky rocket UP and quality will go DOWN. FUCK FUCK FUCK!!! I've been using Zip Car since its inception, and I don't have a car of my own. . . . I guess I"ll have to buy one now. Damn!