Car Sharing In Tokyo

[Mulboyne]

Nippon Parking Development is offering one of the first car sharing schemes I've come across which might develop into an alternative to traditional car rental services for some Tokyo dwellers. It's called Ecoloca and the link will take you to the official site. I can't vouch for it, and I don't know how the costs look compared with renting, but I thought it was worth bringing up because I have friends who use similar schemes in Europe. The map on the site shows a limited number of pick-up locations centred on Shibuya and Aoyama so the service is in the very early stages.

The joining fee is 5,250 for an individual membership (which can include two people) or 10,500 yen for a group (which can include five people). If you join before the end of October then this fee will be waived. To get access to a car, you'll need an IC card and you will be charged 1,480 yen for one of these. There are then two different payment plans. Under Plan A, you pay a monthly 2,980 (3,980 for a group) and then a car rental fee of 160 yen for 15 minutes. Under Plan B, there's no monthly charge but 15 minutes will cost 260 yen. There's also a travel charge of 20 yen a kilometre and a "night pack" supplement of 3,500 yen. Fuel and insurance costs are included which is one of the major selling points of such schemes.

Available cars are currently the Nissan March (also known as the Micra), Mitsubishi Colt, and Nissan Wingroad while there are plans to add the Toyota Prius.

[wuchan]

It sounds like a ripoff version of www.zipcar.com. I used to use zipcar, it costs $50 a year and between $8 and $14 ($58 a day) an hour depending on which car you choose (Civic, prius, tacoma, mazda 3, mini, volvo, bmw). Gas, insurance and unlimited miles included. It is run by Harvard Business School students as an ongoing project for them to earn experience while at school.

[GomiGirl]

This sounds very attractive actually. There are often times where we have wanted the use of a car for a short time - running stuff around town etc. Cheaper than taxis and rental.

To give you an idea on price, we rented a car for three days a few weekends ago to do a Shimoda run. The price for a Nissan "cube3" (horrid car BTW but big inside) was \6,500 a day plus insurance \2,000 plus petrol \5,000. Total cost was just shy of \30,000 for the three days.

But for the convenience of having a car in Shimoda where there just no other real transport options, it was fantastic.

Other times we have rented cars is for driving to Sado Island, driving to the Nagano ski fields etc etc. Plus as I mentioned earlier, running stuff around town when friends move or give away stuff.

We have spoken about buying a run-around car for ourselves as we have parking at our apartment but that would be around \30,000 a month plus the insurance, shaken and then the cost of the car itself. The BF would want something with some style so the cost of this is putting us off a bit given how infrequently we would need it.

[GuyJean]

.. The price for a Nissan "cube3" (horrid car BTW but big inside)...

What didn't you like about it? I didn't mind the one I rented. I liked the headroom.. Pretty gutless, but I expected that..

GJ

[GuyJean]

Has anyone every used ToCoo! for car rental? Just wondering if it's a better process than the usual..

GJ

[Gilligan]

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

Mitsui has also been quietly rolling out a car sharing service called Careco (Japanese). They have 150 members right now and are targeting only 2,000 within 5 years so it isn't getting a major push. The cars are available in car parks that Mitsui run in locations around Daikanyama, Ebisu, Naka Meguro, Shinsen, Shibuya, Nishi Azabu and Ichigaya.

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: Car-sharing schemes shift into overdrive

Car sharing schemes, in which several drivers share a vehicle owned by a separate business, are becoming an economical alternative to private car ownership in urban areas. Yosuke Tsutsumi, 34, gave up his beloved BMW and joined a car sharing scheme in April. A self-confessed car lover with an A-grade racing license, he finally made the decision to leave his foreign car hobby for the future after discovering that he was spending over 100,000 yen a month on his vehicle. The car sharing station just a few minutes' walk away offered him a way of cutting that by two-thirds. In the two months since joining, he's used the scheme around 10 times, for his band and so on. "As a result, I'm taking the train more, and can enjoy drinking when I go out," he says.

Under the Road Transportation Law, car sharing schemes are similar to car rental, but are restricted to registered customers. According to the Eco-Mo Foundation -- the Foundation for Promoting Personal Mobility and Ecological Transportation -- the practice started in Europe in the late 80s, and now has around 650,000 users around the world, mostly in the U.S. and Europe. The highest rate of uptake is in Switzerland, where 1.1 percent of the total population -- about 85,000 people -- are registered users. The first scheme in Japan began in 2002. Just 6,396 users were registered as of January, but the number of users doubled over the past year.

Industry leader ORIX Auto Corp. runs a fleet of 330 cars, with around 5,000 registered users. On registering, each one has to buy a smart card worth 6,730 yen, as well as pay a monthly charge of 2,980 yen. On top of this, users incur time and distance charges (190 yen per 15 minutes, and 14 yen per kilometer), which also covers insurance and gasoline used. Overall, it works out cheaper than a standard rental car for periods of less than five hours. Users can book a car via their PC or mobile phone, and pick it up at their nearest car sharing station, located in parking lots and so on. The keys are left inside the vehicle, which is opened using the user's smart card, and time and distance data is reported automatically to a central data center, which charges the user's credit card. Between April and May, the company finished establishing car sharing stations near all 29 Yamanote Line stations, and launched a PR campaign promoting accessibility between the train system and the scheme. Orix plans to target business customers next, hopefully creating a steady stream of bookings between weekday business users and private users on weekends.

Since January other businesses are also entering the market, including Car Sharing Japan Co. with their "careco" service, JR East Rental&Lease and second-hand car dealer Gulliver International. Parking lot operator Park24, which placed Mazda Car Rental Corp. under its umbrella, will create 1,000 car-sharing stations in five years. As well as public schemes, some apartment management companies are starting to offer car sharing schemes. Yoshie Hara, 37, bought an apartment offering such a scheme in Tokyo's Higashimurayama. Private car ownership was costing her nearly 20,000 yen a month in parking fees alone; the apartment car scheme costs around 300 yen an hour in comparison, and total use for shopping and commuting costs just 6,000 yen or so in total. Real estate management firm Ask Corp. plans to expand its fleet of cars in the Tokyo metropolitan area from 30 to 1,000 cars by next fiscal year. Tsuneo Imako, the driving force behind the plan, says: "We'd like apartment complex management unions that have problems with maintaining automated parking lots to consider introducing such a scheme." "As well as controlling the number of cars on the road, it promotes a shift toward using public transport and bicycles, and so the government regards its as one of the measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions," says the Eco-Mo Foundation. "The acceleration in uptake among large businesses, will make services more accessible."

[Mulboyne]

Japan Car Sharing, based in Shinjuku, has entered an agreement with convenience store chains Ministop and 3F to use parking spaces outside some of their stores for a car sharing programme. They are kicking off first in Yokohama, looking to involve around 140-150 stores within a year and 1,000 within three years. The company is also considering adding electric vehicles to its fleet.