Robin Chase: Excuse me, may I rent your car?

A decade ago, Robin Chase founded Zipcar in the US, now the largest car-sharing company in the world. Now she’s exploring the next level of car-sharing: Buzzcar, a French startup that lets people rent their own cars to others. The details are fascinating (how does insurance work, exactly?), and the larger vision (she calls it Peers, Inc.) points to a new definition of ownership and entrepreneurship. TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design – plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more. Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at www.ted.com Follow TED news on Twitter: www.twitter.com Like TED on Facebook: www.facebook.com Subscribe to our channel: www.youtube.com

Today at the EU-China summit in Brussels, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with European leaders to discuss trade relations. On the agenda was an agreement on CO2 Emissions Trading Schemes (ETS). The EU was eager to work with the world’s largest emitter of CO2 and find ways to cut China’s carbon footprint. European and Chinese officials have finished their negotiations in Brussels at the EU-China summit. But the press conference—scheduled for today—was cancelled at the last minute by the Chinese. And that cancellation has been drawing questions from the media and European officials. A car carrying US ambassador to China Gary Locke was surrounded by anti-Japan protestors on Tuesday. Chinese authorities have expressed regret over the incident, and stated they are investigating the matter. No arrests were apparently made at the scene. Japanese automobile manufacturers Toyota and Honda kept their Chinese operations on hold on Thursday. This comes after some outlets were damaged earlier in the week during violent anti-Japan protests in China. Relations between China and Japan hit their lowest point in decades on Tuesday. It was the anniversary of Japan’s occupation of China in 1931, something China’s leadership still touts as a deep humiliation. Asian stocks took a dip on Thursday reacting to China’s flash PMI figures released by HSBC. The Shanghai Composite index closed at a two week low, down 1.6%.The PMI measures manufacturing activity. The index of 47.8 for September is

26 thoughts on “Robin Chase: Excuse me, may I rent your car?

  1. There’s something about comparing us to a hive that’s a little unsettling. A beehive isn’t concerned with the individual wants and needs of each worker bee, only about the preservation of the queen and the hive itself.

  2. It will not work here. Most Americans don’t like to have a strangers drive their car. I don’t even like to valet park.

  3. I want a platform like this for musical artists, for example, someone plays the bass on your song if you play drums for theirs, etc.

  4. “Excuse me, may I rent your wife? I swear I’ll have her back in the morning.”

    wifeshare dot biz

  5. Problem with the hive is that there is only one queen. Worker bees can be easily replaced. Too easily. Workers on these sites like Fiverr really need unionization.

  6. Yo, dumb ass… there is no USSR to go back to. Maybe you should stop paying all your taxes and start your own country in the front yard of your little world- right behind your picket fence.

  7. It’s a little bit disturbing how even these TED talks tend to chronically keep underrepresenting minority/colored women. Basic progressive policy is to prioritize the underprivileged. Yet, the very women in society who suffer the most from the pressures of the religious right and who lack social mobility most often are, time and again, being sidelined in favor of upper class Western white females.

    We’re in the year 2012, very nearly 2013. Something about this mentality is really worrying.

  8. In terms of filling the gap for housing, there’s airbnb.com. Not sure if there are others, but I know this has gained a lot of popularity and success.

  9. In terms of filling that gap for housing, there’s airbnb.com, which I’ve never tried but have browsed.

  10. Well it wont be long before there will be plenty electric cars that not only have a 500km range, and can recharge most of that range in under half an hour. The Tesla model S already has that range, and can recharge most of it in 45 minutes. Really after 4-5 hours of driving you probably should take a 20 minute rest for safety reasons anyway.

    Induction charging is another method – so your car charges from an induction coil in the road as it drives along. This one is good for trucks.

  11. This presentation didn’t gel with me at all. A lot of the sentences didn’t even make sense, for example 10:04 “you can have these really nice things that can’t happen”. The rest was a load of marketing and management speak. I’m all for sharing resources, but yawn and zzzzzz to this presentation.

  12. they’ve got it in London… my brother uses it… not other peoples cars though.. good good

  13. Kathleen, I love that purple blouse. It wears well on you, especially.
    No pretty gold necklace today.
    Just as well.
    You look lovely even without them.

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