Car Sharing

BALTIMORE - The nation’s first all-electric car-sharing program debuted yesterday at the city’s Inner Harbor, with manufacturer Electrovaya hoping urban residents seeking to go green and curious tourists will take the concept for a spin. Electrovaya Inc. is offering its Maya 300 for rent at the Maryland Science Center. The car can go up to 120 miles on one charge of its lithium-ion battery system, and it gets its juice from a regular 110-volt outlet. “This is an example of what science centers do best,’’ said Van Reiner, president and chief executive of the science center.

Renting a car by the hour is now mainstream. Enterprise Holdings Inc. has acquired the car-sharing company Mint Cars On-Demand, a move that gives the national car rental chain a bigger presence in the growing on-demand rental market and challenges another traditional rental car company in what was until recently considered an alternative industry. Mint Cars, of New York, launched in Boston early last year and has 8,000 members in the two cities. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

NEW YORK - For nearly a century, Hertz Corp. has led the rental car business, catering to vacationing families and businesspeople who need cars for a few days or weeks at a time. Now the $8 billion powerhouse is making a big push into the hourly car rental market dominated by Cambridge-based Zipcar Inc., a $240 million company that has yet to make a profit. Hertz, which has car-sharing operations in a handful of US and European cities and on 60 college campuses, is opening five new locations in the Boston area this month as part of a broader expansion that will also launch hourly rental operations in San...

Zipcar Inc., the Cambridge-based car-sharing service, said it is expanding its Zipvan service to the Boston and Washington, D.C., markets following a successful pilot test in San Francisco. In the case of Greater Boston, Zipcar said it is adding 15 Ford E-150 full size cargo vans to its local fleet of vehicles. The vans are available for hourly or daily rental with rates starting at $15.75 per hour and $109 per day, Zipcar said in a press release. The "Zipvans" will be added to 10 Zipcar locations throughout the city, including pods at the Belvedere Street Prudential Center...

Zipcar Inc., the Cambridge-based car-sharing service, said it is expanding its Zipvan service to the Boston and Washington, D.C., markets following a successful pilot test in San Francisco. In the case of Greater Boston, Zipcar said it is adding 15 Ford E-150 full size cargo vans to its local fleet of vehicles. The vans are available for hourly or daily rental with rates starting at $15.75 per hour and $109 per day, Zipcar said in a press release. The "Zipvans" will be added to 10 Zipcar locations throughout the city, including pods at the Belvedere Street Prudential Center...

Zipcar Inc., the Cambridge-based car-sharing service that rents cars by the hour, said it is investing in a $13.7 million Series A round of funding for a California company that targets so-called "peer-to-peer" car-sharing services to college students. The California company is Palo Alto-based Wheelz Inc., which has devised a car sharing platform designed to connect students who own cars with students who want to pay to borrow them. Under the Wheelz model, car owners can earn money from their cars by providing access to them for "borrowers," who then get use of the vehicle for such occasions...

Shares of Cambridge car-sharing company Zipcar Inc. slid by 14 percent yesterday after the company predicted a first-quarter loss due to sluggish growth in the UK market. The sell-off came despite solid fourth-quarter earnings and revenue reported by Zipcar. Financial analysts expected the company to break even for the last three months of the year, but Zipcar instead posted its second consecutive quarterly profit: $3.9 million, or 9 cents per share, up from a $1.1 million loss a year earlier.

The Cambridge-based car-sharing service advanced after the company was raised to “overweight’’ from “neutral’’ at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Analyst Paul Coster said the recent pullback in the company’s shares revealed a buying opportunity. “Zipcar is the global leader in auto sharing, with over 75 percent share of the market and competitive advantages through scale and reach,’’ Coster said. He also cited Zipcar’s “branded self-service experience.’’ Zipcar last week said it was expanding to Providence.

Zipcar Inc., the Cambridge-based car-sharing service, said it has exercised its option to buy a majority ownership interest in Catalunya Carsharing SA, known as Avancar. Avancar operates a fleet of vehicles in the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Sant Cugat del Valles. "The transaction is expected to be completed in early 2012, and builds on Zipcar's initial equity investment in Avancar in December 2009," the company said in a news release. "With this transaction, Zipcar increases its percentage ownership in Avancar to a controlling stake of 60 percent.

Stock shares of Zipcar Inc. were down more than 13 percent in mid-day trading after the Cambridge-based car-sharing service reported fourth-quarter financial results. Zipcar said fourth-quarter revenue rose 21 percent to $62.9 million, but that number missed the average analyst estimate of $63.4 million, Bloomberg News reported. In a press release, Zipcar added that its fourth-quarter US GAAP net income was $3.9 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, compared with a loss of $1.1 million, or ($0.17)

Zipcar Inc., the Cambridge-based car-sharing service that rents cars by the hour, said it is investing in a $13.7 million Series A round of funding for a California company that targets so-called "peer-to-peer" car-sharing services to college students. The California company is Palo Alto-based Wheelz Inc., which has devised a car sharing platform designed to connect students who own cars with students who want to pay to borrow them. Under the Wheelz model, car owners can earn money from their cars by providing access to them for "borrowers," who then get use of the vehicle for such occasions as running...

Stock shares of Zipcar Inc. were down more than 13 percent in mid-day trading after the Cambridge-based car-sharing service reported fourth-quarter financial results. Zipcar said fourth-quarter revenue rose 21 percent to $62.9 million, but that number missed the average analyst estimate of $63.4 million, Bloomberg News reported. In a press release, Zipcar added that its fourth-quarter US GAAP net income was $3.9 million, or $0.09 per diluted share, compared with a loss of $1.1 million, or ($0.17)

Shares of Cambridge car-sharing company Zipcar Inc. slid by 14 percent yesterday after the company predicted a first-quarter loss due to sluggish growth in the UK market. The sell-off came despite solid fourth-quarter earnings and revenue reported by Zipcar. Financial analysts expected the company to break even for the last three months of the year, but Zipcar instead posted its second consecutive quarterly profit: $3.9 million, or 9 cents per share, up from a $1.1 million loss a year earlier.

Zipcar Inc., the Cambridge-based car sharing system, said it is teaming up with the City of Boston to help the city's fleet of vehicles gain efficiencies and savings. Under a program called "FleetHub," a number of city-owned vehicles will be equipped with Zipcar's proprietary car sharing technology for use by city employees. Through the program, the city will be able to combine vehicles that were once dedicated to individual city departments and create an interdepartmental fleet that city employees can share, in part by using Zipcar's...

Zipcar Inc., the Cambridge-based car-sharing service, said it has exercised its option to buy a majority ownership interest in Catalunya Carsharing SA, known as Avancar. Avancar operates a fleet of vehicles in the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Sant Cugat del Valles. "The transaction is expected to be completed in early 2012, and builds on Zipcar's initial equity investment in Avancar in December 2009," the company said in a news release. "With this transaction, Zipcar increases its percentage ownership in Avancar to a controlling stake of 60 percent.

NEW YORK - For nearly a century, Hertz Corp. has led the rental car business, catering to vacationing families and businesspeople who need cars for a few days or weeks at a time. Now the $8 billion powerhouse is making a big push into the hourly car rental market dominated by Cambridge-based Zipcar Inc., a $240 million company that has yet to make a profit. Hertz, which has car-sharing operations in a handful of US and European cities and on 60 college campuses, is opening five new locations in the Boston area this month as part of a broader expansion that will also launch hourly...

After nearly seven years of getting strangers to share cars for a few hours at a time, Zipcar Inc. believes it has the know-how to leap beyond its customer base of tech-savvy twenty- and thirtysomethings in big US cities. The car-sharing service plans to disclose today that it's revamping its reservation and fleet management systems -- moves Zipcar is taking to support expansion into Europe and other markets beyond the 13 states and Canadian provinces where it now operates. It's also increasingly stationing cars outside cities' dense centers, hoping to reach prospective customers on the periphery.

Globe Staff Zipcar Inc ., the Cambridge-based car-sharing company that recently went public, wants all hands to know that a Zipcar gift certificate --- or "Zipcertificate" --- can make for an ideal graduation present. According to a company press release , Zipcar is a more convenient and cost-effective alternative to car ownership, in part because it has locations in 14 major metropolitan markets, as well as on 230 college campuses, "making membership a great gift option for college graduates moving to a big city, or for high school graduates who will be attending a...

RelayRides , the "neighbor-to-neighbor" car-sharing service, is jumping the Charles this month, using $3.6 million in new funds to expand from Cambridge, where the company was founded, into Boston. The company is also expanding in the city of San Francisco, where it is now headquartered. Unlike Zipcar, which leases the cars in its fleet, RelayRides invites car owners to rent out their cars when they don't need them. (The company was created last spring by Harvard Business School student Shelby Clark, and won a $50,000 prize in the...

The Cambridge-based car-sharing service advanced after the company was raised to “overweight’’ from “neutral’’ at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Analyst Paul Coster said the recent pullback in the company’s shares revealed a buying opportunity. “Zipcar is the global leader in auto sharing, with over 75 percent share of the market and competitive advantages through scale and reach,’’ Coster said. He also cited Zipcar’s “branded self-service experience.’’ Zipcar last week said it was expanding to Providence.