Hitchin' a Ride

FlexCar, for those of you not situated on the West Coast or DC or Chicago, is a car-sharing company that operates a fleet of cars from which you can use a vehicle for a day or part of a day. It helps people who can't afford (or don't want) to own a car get the use of a car and, ultimately, keep more cars from clogging up the roads. A very cool concept and company, indeed. A friend of mine just got employed by FlexCar, and the company also recently got a PR and financial boost from two surprising industry leaders; via Treehugger:

Car-sharing is awesome! There, we've put our cards on the table, now you know what we think. We've been working on a general post about that subject for a while and it will soon appear on Treehugger, but we can't wait that long to let our readers know about some exciting new developments in that industry. "America Online co-founder Steve Case and former Chrysler Corp. Chief Executive Lee Iacocca are joining the board of the 6-year-old car-sharing service [Flexcar] and investing an undisclosed amount in the privately held company. As a result of the investment, Flexcar will double its fleet of 450 cars and expand into as many as five new cities in the next 16 months [...] It also hopes to double its membership to 60,000 people by the end of next year." Ain't that grand?