Above. This carsharing station of 2 cars is located near apartments, offices, grocery stores, a bus stop and bike lanes. You can get a better look at the solar, stand alone lock box behind the car from the photos on the next page. long distances quit, because they can go to a normal car rental company. And the year before, we raised the time charges, and then the people going for short distances quit. So however you do it, you lose somebody. DJ: You haven't found the best one to raise? CP: Switch from year to year which you raise. Of course, every year you have to argue to get the increase. We said this year that the density of the stations is much better. People really have the station close by and the stations are really expensive. You hav~ to pay for the parking space and the cost is there whether people drive or not. DJ: What is the joining fee? CP: It is at least 800DM and you get it back when membership ends. And yes, we raise that as well. We tried to raise it to 1300DM once, so we could get rid of debts. But this was too much for people, no one joined. A new member can pay 800DM but gets no interest on his deposit, or he can pay 1300DM and get 3.5% interest or if he pays over 1600DM he gets 4.5% interest. In the mixture, some people have that much money, and one doesn't get those kind of interest rates elsewhere. "We are kind of a green bank." In the beginning, we took out 11% loans from the banks. So 4.5% is a lot less and it is much better for us. And there is a political movement against banks in Germany - Page 46 RAIN Summer 1996 Volume XV, Number 1 because of their involvement in arms and war. We are kind of a green bank. People know it is better to give their money to STATTAUTO because of the members' association and because the financial books are very open. DJ: How is STATTAUTO structured? . CP: As a GMBH, which is like a limited corporation. If STATTAUTO does some big mistake like not filling the brake fluid, any lawsuit would be paid by the company, not individuals. With 130 cars, things happen. In Germany, limited corporations must have 50,000DM for protection to use to pay off any harmed party... you don't have that in the U.S.? (DJ:) No. (CP:) Well, that is pretty unsafe for the public! This corporation is owned completely by me and Markus. Users have a Registered Association, and they can be a member of that. You can be a participant in the corporation and a member in the association. If you're a member in the association, you can vote in the yearly meeting, and make general decisions monthly. You deciqe important questions like: what cars we want; how/if we take on a-food delivery service because it costs money and I have to organize it and it takes time and everything. Some said no on the delivery service because it might take business from neighborhood stores, but others wanted it because of the organically-grown food. There is a contract between the corporation and the association and in this contract are 3 essentials: 1. Open books for the association monthly and yearly. 2. The corporation may not change the prices and the kind of usage without asking the member association. 3. No part of the corporation is to be sold without asking the association. So they have pretty big rights in the corporation. We think this is important. They are better with our cars then with a rental agency like Hertz's or Europcar's cars. Only about 114 of the participants are members of the association. Total association membership is 400. At the last annual meeting there were 80. At the monthly meeting, 10-12 really interested members attend: those that often work in transport or political, green party activity. So you see the interest is not too big. For the members it is important to have the security that they could look in the corporation's books. But they never do. This is a virtual thing. But they have more rights. DJ: How quickly can I become a member? CP: You could phone -and there is an answering machine where you can leave your name and address. And then we send you a letter. The first step is we send you a letter and a brochure. Then you know how the system works and where the stations are. Every week, we have 2 days when people
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