can come to a meeting to learn about the system. Which takes about an hour. There are always about 10 to 20 new people who come, and they learn about everything and the next day they can start using the cars. DJ: Can I come to your office and join any day? CP: No, you always must come to one of the twice a week meetings to join. Because we don't want to have to explain it all day. We have other work, so we only have 2 days a week. In the beginning, it is not as convenient as other rental agencies, but then after the first meeting you never have to come again. You only have to come on,ce. And then it is much more convenient, of course. "For the insurance·company it is ok because the accident rate is much lower with our people than with car rentals." DJ: How did you first begin working with insurance companies to do this? What was the system before and what is it now? CP: This is not very difficult. In the beginning, it was the same as a car rental so they knew that system. We had to pay the same fees. And after some years through the European CarSharing Association (ECS), we managed to deal with them, so that we can take over the private insurance contracts of the people (participants) which is much cheaper. So we pay very little now. For the insurance company it is ok because the accident rate is much lower with our people than with car rentals. Of course, the insurance is lower as well so you don't have to pay much. So it is not very complicated. DJ: I know with Auto-com Quebec, they used a local insurer and got ·a per kilometer rate, so they only pay when the cars are being used. CP: That is not possible in Germany. The industry is very regulated. DJ: Do you have all new cars? CP: Yes. After 2 years they get sold. In the ECS carsharing standards, you have to keep the cars for more than one year. DJ: We are creating a North American CarSharing Association [NACSA]... (GB:) So, what is European CarSharing organization's (ECS's) history? CP: ECS was founded in 1991 in Switzerland. At that point, carsharing was much stronger and wider in Switzerland than in Germany. And now we have 35 organizations that are members in ECS. They come from Switzerland, Austria, Ger~any and the Netherlands. ECS established ecological and social standards for carsharing. User control of the carsharing corporations is fixed in the standards. So you Above. This is.the sign for the main STATTAUTO Berlin Headquarters, now in "East" Berlin. Before there were businesses here, the building was squatted "illegally." The government decided to give the building to the squatters to fix up and now it is a transportation center for several taxi groups, a driving school and Stattauto. have to do this. We did this, of course, to exclude Avis. We knew they would never do it. ECS wrote the International Standard Organization (ISO) to define what carsharing is and we will fix it so that you must have user democracy. If we can do this, Avis can't say they are doing carsharing... and carsharing is pretty famous right now. Normally ISO is for products not services... now it is open for services, as well. We tried to come with ECS standards to the ISO. Now we are the most advanced carsharing organization, so maybe we have the power to come in and really establish an ecological standard not just a financial standard, not just a service definition. Normally services are described by how you do them, but we want to describe the ecological or social issues. .. "We have 31 stations now in Berlin and at every station we have one participant who takes care of the cars." DJ: We'd like to adopt your standards... CP: Of course. It says in our ECS standards. 1. You have to keep the cars for more than one year. So you cannot become a hidden car-selling organization like Europcar, that just takes the cars and sells them after 6 months. It is owned by VW, and Avis is owned by Opal/ GM, so they are just selling organizations. They never earn anything out of car rentals. They buy for 30% discount off the list price, and after half a year it is still worth the list price and then they sell it. And we don't want to do that so you have to keep the cars for more than one year. 2. You have to have user democracy. RAIN Summer 1996 Volume XV, Number 1 Page 47
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