I couldn't agree more. I got a year's membership for free, tried it once, never again.
For most times you want to use it (weekend), everyone else does too, so there's never a way to "spontaneously" use a ZipCar instead of something else (you have to reserve days in advance), and it's way more expensive than you'd been led to believe.
But secondly, I discovered hourly-based rentals just don't work. I was the idiot who returned my 4-hour rental an hour late, simply because of factors outside of my control (insanely long lines where I was, too much traffic coming back, but since I don't usually drive or go there, how was I supposed to know?). I felt horrible for the next customer who didn't have a car, had to pay a fine, and realized that life and traffic are just too unpredictable for reserved hourly rentals to make any sense at all.
If ZipCar had a huge fleet where everyone who wanted one in Manhattan on the weekend could get one, that would be great... but then it would be sitting unused during the week, and be way too expensive.
So, just to be clear, you literally drove a Zipcar ONE TIME, you screwed up and didn't leave yourself enough time on the rental (yes, you'll have to book with the understanding that things are very likely to take longer than you think -- and yes, you will often pay for time you're not actually in the car at the end of your reservation)...and then you never did it again?
The system is designed specifically to disincentivize people from doing what you did -- to book without really having a good sense of how long something is going to take. This is to prevent people from screwing over the next person, which as you said, you felt bad about. And you should -- you fucked them.
The system is what it is, and is designed for a certain kind of use. If you're going to take a trip during a relatively in-demand time (meaning, not the middle of the night) that's going to take 3.5 hours +/- 1.5 hours, you either book for 5 hours or you probably shouldn't use Zipcar. You can risk it to try to be efficient, but then you might pay a big ole fine and screw over someone else.
If you need to be able to take highly variable length trips and not commit to a given rental length, then maybe you should buy a car. Don't blame Zipcar when you're trying its very structured system in a willy-nilly manner.
You literally had a worse experience on your first drive than I've had on any of my probably 100+, and you're condemning the entire service -- nay, the entire business model -- based on one experience. One. Surely you can see how this seems like madness.
If ZipCar had a huge fleet where everyone who wanted one in Manhattan on the weekend could get one, that would be great... but then it would be sitting unused during the week, and be way too expensive.
This is the fundamental reason private ownership of vehicles is the mode, IMO. Everybody tends to use them at the same time.
One would one thing a constantly rental price could be used to balance these demand fluctuations. ZipCar could raise prices as the weekend approached just enough so a few cars would be left on the weekend for those willing to pay a serious premium.
The limit might be that most users would be very annoyed at the resulting uncertainty in how much they would pay for a car. A caveat to the efficient market hypothesis.
You definitely have to pad the hourly rentals at times, but they do work. It always helps if you have a nearby grocery store or something where if you do have some time left over you can run an extra errand.
For most times you want to use it (weekend), everyone else does too, so there's never a way to "spontaneously" use a ZipCar instead of something else (you have to reserve days in advance), and it's way more expensive than you'd been led to believe.
But secondly, I discovered hourly-based rentals just don't work. I was the idiot who returned my 4-hour rental an hour late, simply because of factors outside of my control (insanely long lines where I was, too much traffic coming back, but since I don't usually drive or go there, how was I supposed to know?). I felt horrible for the next customer who didn't have a car, had to pay a fine, and realized that life and traffic are just too unpredictable for reserved hourly rentals to make any sense at all.
If ZipCar had a huge fleet where everyone who wanted one in Manhattan on the weekend could get one, that would be great... but then it would be sitting unused during the week, and be way too expensive.