Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: car-sharing question (Findhorn)

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Below is a response on this thread that came directly to me.
I got permission to share it here.  It is from
Gordon McAlpine Manager, Moray Carshare in Scotland that
Findhorn uses that Graham Meltzer wrote about.
Fred

--
Bassett Creek Cohousing, Minneapolis  http://mn.cohousing.org/bcrk/
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
     Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532
My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2018 14:35:25
From: Gordon McAlpine <manager [at] moraycarshare.com>

My friend Graham Meltzer passed on his message and your messages to
me. Great to see your interest. I just wanted to say that if you have
specific co-housing groups setting up who might be interested in
trying car sharing, then I am most happy to help. We are a charity
created for public and environmental benefit. We are very willing to
pass on our tools and our knowledge.

Our car club is a low tech model. We have no  shareholders to pay a
dividend to. And we have a very high level of usage - about 38%.
people in the industry say 40% is about the best anyone can achieve.

Our prices are much cheaper than having your own car if you have low
or moderate/medium use - as defined in the figures you quote, Fred. I
have not  found any car clubs cheaper than us. And as your example
shows, we are much much cheaper than commercial operations, who waste
a lot of money on expensive high tech solutions, because they assume
people are not to be trusted, but are going to try and abuse the
system if at all possible. In a co-housing environment, you can use
the low tech solution, which is best on a certain amount of trust.

Also, there is a mistake in one of your calculations, Fred. Our per
mile price covers petrol. When members pay to refuel a car, then they
get the money back on their next bill.
[I posted a reply to cohousing-L address this. Fred]

Also, the IRS figure (54 cents per mile) is a very inaccurate and
misleading figure. We have a similar one here (45p per mile). This is
the cost of an expensive car that doesn't do too many miles. I do not
know why, but the figures have been fixed to suit certain people. My
guess is that it started as a way of giving civil servants an income
supplement. No car clubs use per mile charges only. It is much fairer
to distribute the costs on time used and miles driven. Our mileage
charges cover fuel costs plus maintenance costs due to wear & tear.
All other costs are covered by hourly charges and subscriptions. We
have fine tuned this system over 10 years of experience with a high
level of member feedback and influence.

Hoping this may be helpful.

Regards,

Gordon McAlpine
Manager, Moray Carshare
Registered charity no. SC047744
08458 609 609
http://www.moraycarshare.org