Above. Whereas the average Ber(in car is driven only 55 minutes each day, Stattauto cars are used intensively, making better use of resources. At least one-fourth ofthe environmental damage done by cars occurs in production. technology association, they have developed the first ~arsharing lot in Germany with solar-driven electric cars (EMobiles). On March 5th, Stattauto celebrated a highprofile opening of the first "solar service station", a set of solar panels on a roof in Kreuzberg, with a "solar pump" below in the courtyard. The panels collect energy in the . daytime, which.is sold to the city's electric power grid, and in the evening the two Stattauto E-Mobiles are recharged for the next day's use. The pump is designed to give E-Mobiles only as much energy as the solar panels generate. Since carsharing is baseq on short urban trips, it is certain that the use of solar-fed electric cars (whose batteries have a 60km limit) will take off ·after these initial experiments prove themselves. An expanding European CarSharing network (ECS) is based in Berlin, directed by Carsten Petersen of Stattauto. ECS organizations are.found already in Switzerland, Germany, Holland and Austria, and are now starting up in Sweden and England. Berlin Stattauto members presently can us~, without any bureaucracy, other carsharing groups' vehicles in about 70 different cities. Members can take.the train to these other cities and still have a car or bike to use· when they get there. . Among the lofty goals of the ECS are reductions in both the number and use of cars, and support for · cooperation between carsharing and public transportation. ECS affiliates, such as Stattauto, cannot maintain more than one vehicle for each 10 members, and the rates for car use must be above the costs for similar trips on mass transit. Car co-op members must have the right to participate in Page 4 RAIN Summer 1994 Volume XIV, Number 4 organizational decision-making. Carsharing groups1 set the pricing of their services to cover overhead and are not expected to earn any profit. Although the ECS~ affiliated groups have tightlycontrolled finances, social and ecological objectives must come before economic ones. Within Stattauto a Members' Forum has been active since the beginning. It has the authority to direct spending, among other things. Stattauto, ancJ carsharing in other cities, is organized independently from government and bureaucracy, encouraging the participatory empowerment of the membership. ECS is similarly decentralized: a network of neighborhood-based groups that reaches across cities and countries. Stattauto organizers are committed tO' both ecological transportation and ecological forms of organization. It is their goal that the model of carsharing remain comprehen.sible, easy for others to repeat, and broadly affordable by the public. . What are the demographics of the current carsharing public in Berlin? The carsharing pioneers ih Kreuzberg were younger, poorer and more idealistic than the average middle-class Stattauto member of today. Today's member is 35, earns $2,000 to $3,000 per month, has a nniversity degree, votes Green, is a teacher, architect or other professional, is idealistic but not avant-garde, and is a former car owner. Stattauto is working to expand its base. Indulging ourselves for a moment, and using some very crude numbers, let's assume that by the year 2000 Berlin is completely converted to carsharing, and has a population of 6,ooo;ooo. The city would then have only 600,000 cars Members presently can· use vehicles in about 70 diffe~ent cities. · parked on the streets instead of 2,000,000. This reduction of 1,400,000 autos represents a fantastic improvement not only in the urban ecology of the city, but a winning back of enough land to pl~nt a million trees, or milHons of flowers, fruit and vegetable plants. If the entire German population moved in the direction of carsharing, tens of millions of autos could be scrapped. Carshaiing in the US could lead to the recycling of a hundred million autos! The German groups are trying to help out new US groups with their Handbook for Carsharers that will be available next year in English with sections relevant to the
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