What makes a car really cool?

According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab, a car’s color is what makes it cool—literally, when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. Cars of a lighter hue, such as white or silver, stay cooler because they reflect up to 60% of sunlight. On the other hand, darker colored cars reflect only 5% of sunlight, absorb more heat — and consequently use air-conditioning more often.

The payoff of going lighter in the U.S.

A car’s color is what makes it cool—literally.

If we all suddenly switched to light-colored “cool cars,” the implications would be huge. Here’s why:

Cool cars use less A/C: since they’re not as hot, a cool car’s A/C system can be built 13% smaller (for lower capacity) than a dark-colored car.

Less A/C used or a smaller A/C system means less fuel used: choosing a white or silver car over of a black one improves fuel economy by about 2%. That may not sound like much, but at scale it’s staggering. Considering the U.S. consumes 400 million gallons of gas per day, we’d save 8 million gallons of gas per day just by driving a lighter-colored car.

Less fuel consumed means fewer carbon emissions: a gallon of gasoline produces about 19lbs of CO2 emissions. Not burning that 8 million gallons of gas each day remove 28.5 million tons of CO2 emissions each year!

The icing on the cake? With gas at $4 per gallon, light-colored cars would save the U.S. population $12 billion each year.

Now let’s take this global

The entire planet uses 900 million gallons of gas per day, so if everyone traded up their car for a light-colored one, the 2% improvement in fuel economy would:

• save 18 million gallons of fuel per day and 6.5 billion gallons per year
• save $26 billion spent on fuel (at a mere $4 a gallon)
• cut annual CO2 emissions by almost 62 million tons

The quick, beautiful conclusion

Light colored cars = less fuel consumed = billions more dollars in our pockets = less CO2 emissions = a better world. Small, seemingly inconsequential decisions we make have big effects.

Think about the color of your car.

Consider the irony: of all industries so beautifully disrupted by the sharing economy, why is there such little progress in the health and fitness niche?

After all, the mantra is “be lean, healthy and nimble” — just like collaborative consumption. Yet, with all those billions spent on fad diets, gym memberships and experts advice, America consistently ranks as the most obese nation on Earth.

How to trim the fat

Collaborative consumption offers a tremendous opportunity to optimize our bodies and our communities while transforming a broken, bloated industry.

For example, take your average gym membership. Did you know people overestimate their membership usage by 70%?

Let’s say gyms made a small change in their rules to let people share their membership with new or other less active members. They could limit the sharing to, say, three people at a time, with at a cap of three months length, after which the “guest” would have to purchase their own membership (with the option to repeat the cycle of sharing).

Everyone benefits:

• the original member saves money on their underutilized gym membership
• the new member gets to try out the gym at a fraction of the cost before they commit
• the gym gets free exposure while leveraging a community of existing member to help organically grow their business

This approach eliminates a lot of wasted time and money for everyone, including the gym that no longer has to rely on hype marketing to generate revenue.

Let’s move on to personal trainers. Right now, there are basically two categories: those who train as employees of a gym, and those who train independently.

Each scenario comes with its own constraints: a really good trainer in a gym rarely gets the pay she deserves, while an equally awesome solo trainer cannot scale the benefits he’s providing without raising serious capital.

So why not create collaborative consumption marketplace solely devoted to personal trainers? Trainers can offer their services to larger numbers of people and, as in any viable marketplace, the best ones will rise to the top. That’s more people getting fit and happy!

Sporting equipment and fitness DVDs are multi-billion markets that likely create more waste than results. How about starting a sharing platform for gently used sporting goods? Or a Netflix for fitness films?

Let’s close with the idea of upcycling our energy expenditure. We could offset the cost it takes to power our fancy cardio machines by converting all that exertion into clean, usable, human-powered energy! Imagine if every mile you ran on the treadmill kept the gym showers hot.

It would be cool to have a huge display board in the cardio room showing how much energy all active people are generating at any given moment. Maybe then we’d start looking up for inspiration instead of down at that niggling little timer.

***
Here are some sharing platforms with health and fitness-related offerings, but they are not exclusively focused:

• NeighborGoods

  As of this writing, there are 1,867 Sports and Outdoor items, which counts stuff like snow chains in Kansas.

• TaskRabbit

  There appears to be a pretty sizable Yoga class network, as well as the occasional personal trainer—if you look hard enough.

• Uniiverse

  Scroll down the homepage to locate a Pilates instructor, gymnastics conditioning, a ping pong coach and more.

photo credits: vgm8383, Noodles and Beef, ЯAFIK ♋ BERLIN & kate at yr own risk via photopin cc

But which ones really stand out? After pouring through oodles of TED talks, we whittled down to these ten based on their potential to inspire and empower YOU to change the world.  Are you up for the challenge?

What you do is the proof of what you believe.

Author Simon Sinek explains in clear and powerful language the key difference between successful and unsuccessful leaders.

Abundance is not about creating a life of luxury but rather creating a life of possibility.

Space exploration visionary, X Prize founder and Singularity University co-founder Peter Diamandis shows us that optimism can be leveraged to overcome the biggest challenges of our time.

How to build electric cars for 99% of the population within the economics we have today.

Better Place CEO Shah Agassi has a solution to make countries oil-free by 2020, and it has everything to do with electric cars.

How does food hold the secret to cancer prevention?

William Li of the Angiogenesis Foundation breaks down his research on foods that fight angiogenesis—the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor.

Lead a tribe and change the world by connecting people with great ideas.

Seth Godin, the Yoda of modern marketing, talks about creating tribes that transcend the mass marketing of average ideas and abundance of ads.

A world where half our countries and companies are run by women would be a better world.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg makes the case—and faces the challenges—of why women lead behind men, and how to change that for future generations.

Lots of smiling can actually make you healthier.

Learn from HealthTap CEO Ron Gutman why smiling matters, and how it makes us appear more likable, courteous and competent.

Less stuff and less space mean more freedom.

Treehugger founder Graham Hill challenges us to consider the benefits of an edited life, and how we can be much happier with less.

Live life each day as if it were your last.

Ric Elias relates his experience of surviving a plane crash to share wisdom on how to live a more meaningful life.

What can we learn from gamers to help solve real world problems?

Game designer Jane McGonigal reveals some surprising virtues of online gamers that’s much needed in solving the problems of real life.

Got any more TED talks to share? Leave them in the comments below.

Just face it—between driving to work, powering all those gadgets and eating that steak you love—your lifestyle is pretty rough on Mother Earth.

Why not take 10 seconds to do something good for the planet?

Of course, you could start with car sharing. It’s been shown that every car shared takes more than 13 more cars off the road. Fewer cars on the road means less time wasted in traffic, less pain felt at the gas pump and at least six tons less CO2 emissions used manufacturing those cars in the first place.

But that’s just the beginning. Did you know that a single gallon of gas produces over 19 lbs. of carbon dioxide emissions, and the average car emits 11,450 lbs. of emissions per year?

Sharing one car, on the other hand, removes 100,000 lbs CO2 emissions from the planet each year.

Not ready to share your car?

We’re working on getting all cars on the planet shared. In the meantime, we have an easy way for everyone to help the planet: for every Like we get on our Facebook page, we will remove one pound of carbon emissions. Our goal is to remove 1,000,000 pounds of CO2 emissions by Earth Hour. Together, we can do this!

How we’re going to remove 1,000,000 lbs of CO2 emissions

The people at Terrapass make it easy to shrink your carbon footprint by buying carbon offsets that represent the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, the principal cause of global warming.

Each Facebook Like will help support hundreds of these projects, from clean energy wind farms to methane capture from landfills.

Like the page and share it with your friends. The more you share, the faster we’ll get to 1,ooo,ooo lbs.

photo credit: IronRodArt – Royce Bair (NightScapes on Thursdays) and Sebastiano Pitruzzello (aka gorillaradio) via photopin cc

This year, sharing went from mere survival skill to one of the hottest trends to watch. Leaders of the Sharing Economy were prominent across many panel discussion, including this awesome one.

Sharing also had a real physical footprint in Austin from the TaskRabbit park to the GE Skillshare area. Some of the hottest parties and gatherings were also around—you guessed it—sharing.

We met up with a few company founders and sharing experts to ask them why it’s such a hot topic. Check out some sharing in action:

After a few days in the Austin rain, it became clear that sharing is nothing new at SXSW—it’s an integral part of the conference experience. We noticed more people bunking up in Airbnbs than hotels, not to mention countless FOMO-stricken session attendees hiring TaskRabbits to wait in line for them.

And let’s not forget those who rented cars from friendly Austinites.

Finding a parking spot in the city can take just as long as the actual drive or cost just as much as a monthly car payment, but now—thanks to collaborative consumption—there are more promising options.

Peer-to-peer parking services pair drivers with people looking to rent out a private parking spot on an hourly, daily or monthly basis, monetizing spots that previously sat empty.

Most companies offer a mobile app to enable real-time discovery, which helps drivers quickly locate spots in neighborhoods where parking is a challenge.

For drivers, cheaper spots and more of them

“Circling for parking accounts for approximately 30 percent of San Francisco’s congestion”
—Tom Nolan, Chairman of the SFMTA Board of Directors

Chad Meyer—co-founder of Park Circa—discovered through beta testing in San Francisco that people were paying about $2 an hour for other people’s spots. Public spots that were previously unavailable were also being rented.

“People started renting out the space that blocks their driveway, which puts more parking spots back in the public market,” says Meyer.

He adds that so far it’s been a good experience, albeit a little new to people. Having signs to identify these spaces will help legitimize the concept, he says.

For spot owners, some extra cash

Nick Miller, co-founder of Parking Panda, says the cost for parking spots vary depending on location and timing of events, but averages $2-4 an hour and $15/day. Most owners rent their spots out about 7-10 times a month.

For instance, Mondiu Ladejobi lives close to Baltimore’s Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium. After letting friends use his parking spots for free, he now uses Parking Panda to earn some money during Orioles and Ravens games, when demand for parking spikes.

“ParkingPanda has unlocked value which a lot of homeowners in situations such as myself had no way of capturing previously,” Ladejobi says, adding that vacant parking spots around event venues are notoriously expensive.

Peer-to-peer parking companies now available

ParkatmyHouse: started in the UK and recently launched in the US. Instant bookings allow drivers to secure a spot without waiting for the owner to approve.

ParkingPanda: mobile app lets users search for spots. Currently operating in Baltimore.

Park Circa: mobile app lets users search for spots. Currently in private beta mode, but the platform is usable anywhere. Automated posting of spots to Craigslist is in the works.

ParkingSpots: integrates with Google Maps, offers spaces on a monthly or hourly basis. Prices are negotiable at the spot owner’s discretion, and spot seekers can sign up for alerts.

ParkingSpotter: puts owners and renters in direct communication instead of facilitating the transaction as a middleman. Renters can narrow search results according to walking time, cost and other factors.

Storably: offers parking spots and storage spaces such as basements and attics. Once the renter and owner connect, Storably sets up a month-to-month rental.

Photo credits: akarkayu and Dirk Dallas via photopin cc

There’s something about Austin that brings out the spirit of adventure and innovation in all of us, especially around SXSW.

It’s with great excitement that today we’re officially launching our peer-to-peer car sharing service in Austin, Texas!

Get the Getaround iPhone app
for the ultimate car sharing experience
(recommended but not required)

What this means for Austin

Our intent is to unite the Austin community in reducing traffic, emissions and the costs of car ownership while giving you access to a better transportation options.

We also want to make this simple, convenient and fun for everyone. If you own a car, you can join now and start sharing it immediately with fellow Austinites (remember—you choose who rents your car, for how much and when). If you need a car, you can also join now and have one ready in a matter of minutes.

And of course—every rental comes with our A++ rated primary insurance policy, so you never have to worry about coverage.

Why Austin?

One word—community.

Like the amazing Portlanders we met last month, Austinites share a lot in common. You’re open-minded and laid back. You’re passionate about technology, but that doesn’t stop you from exploring the beautful, wide open spaces nearby.

You think differently, and we love you for that.

Join the party, literally

The magic of SXSW is upon us and we want to meet you!

Catch our co-founder Jessica Scorpio speaking this Friday at this panel on disrupting regulated industries, immediately followed by our very first Getaround Austin member meetup.

Then join us and our friends for the ultimate collaborative consumption fiesta. The party is open if you’re a Getaround member, but space is quickly running out—so sign-up now, it’s totally free!

Check out some of the cars available in Austin

• Patrick's maroon Honda Civic "AustinRides"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_AustinRides.jpg
  Patrick's maroon Honda Civic "AustinRides"">

• Sam's blue Ford Fiesta "shyguy"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_shyguy1.jpg
  Sam's blue Ford Fiesta "shyguy"">

• Roman's silver Audi A4 "rl51"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_rl51.jpg
  Roman's silver Audi A4 "rl51"">

• Kevin's dark gray Volkswagen Passat "512Passat"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_512Passat.jpg
  Kevin's dark gray Volkswagen Passat "512Passat"">

• Beverly's racing green Mini Cooper "Beverlina"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_Beverlina.jpg
  Beverly's racing green Mini Cooper "Beverlina"">

• Geraldine's desert mist metallic Honda Accord "Geraldine"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_Geraldine.jpg
  Geraldine's desert mist metallic Honda Accord "Geraldine"">

• Lisa's white Nissan Altima "lisamichelleblackwell"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_lisamichelleblackwell.jpg
  Lisa's white Nissan Altima "lisamichelleblackwell"">

• Bianca's silver Mazda Miata "fiestaflores"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_fiestaflores.jpg
  Bianca's silver Mazda Miata "fiestaflores"">

• Clint's white Ford Escape "Clint"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_Clint.jpg
  Clint's white Ford Escape "Clint"">

• Tiffany's gray Honda Civic "tkeeton"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_tkeeton.jpg
  Tiffany's gray Honda Civic "tkeeton"">

• Gordon's gray Toyota Matrix "gordon2611"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_gordon2611a.jpg
  Gordon's gray Toyota Matrix "gordon2611"">

• Jordan's turquoise Toyota Pruis "jordanmyskaallen"

  http://blog.getaround.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Getaround_jordanmyskaallen.jpg
  Jordan's turquoise Toyota Pruis "jordanmyskaallen"">

Flickr Creative Commons top photo by StandUPP

Feels great to take a vacation, doesn’t it? Or does it these days?

In this age of collaborative consumption, the notion of taking your “two weeks” to blow your hard-earned cash on an overpriced yet underwhelming tourist trap experience seems less appealing than ever.

Nowadays, travel is all about freedom, authenticity and being nimble. It’s about embarking on meaningful adventures that cost less, give back to local communities and tread lightly on the environment.

Check out these 5 vacation “pitfalls” and how you can use collaborative consumption to ditch them next time (and every time) you hit the road:

#1: You’re spending way too much money

According to a 2010 survey by American Express, the average cost of a vacation is about $1,000/person per week, including airfare.  That probably doesn’t count all the extra fees for car insurance, parking, hotel Internet, etc., nor time spent waiting on customer service agents.

How to ditch this: Use Zimride to catch a ride with someone headed your direction and Getaround for your rental car once you get there. Book an affordable room on Airbnb. All of this without the sticker shock, hidden fees or wasted time or in line or on the phone!

#2: You’re not mingling with the locals

Traveling somewhere foreign can feel lonely, not to mention awkward. When you get stuck in a place where tourists are herded around like sheep, you only engage with other tourists. This means missing out on the local perspective, which can make or break your vacation.

How to ditch this: Couchsurfing is a great example of a collaborative consumption service that puts you in direct contact with locals who are passionate about sharing their regional expertise with fellow travelers. In the case of Airbnb, they also benefit from your business. It’s a win-win.

#3: You feel like a tourist

Being a tourist and feeling like a tourist are two different things, and the latter sucks. It’s like traveling across the world to see the Pyramids in Egypt, then getting dumped off at the cheap souvenir shop right after the tour. Yuck.

How to ditch this: Try Vayable or Sidetour— where you can book local activities with cool people who live where you’re headed. So instead of buying that cheesy Pyramid snow-globe, you could be sipping fresh mint tea in the oasis with a local Cairo shopkeeper.

#4: It’s not sustainable

Sustainable travel strives to make a low impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate opportunites for local people. The typical vacation resort, however, consumes tons of natural resources and generates excessive waste (like electricity and food).

How to ditch this: It’s simple—participate in any form of collaborative consumption and by default you participate in sustainable travel. It’s all about supporting individuals by paying to have access to their existing resources and knowledge.

#5: It’s hard to be flexible

Want to change your travel plans on the fly? Not really cheap or easy, right? That’s because you’re dealing with companies that still rely on large, slow and clunky systems that literally bank on the change fees they charge you.

How to ditch this: If it isn’t obvious by now, try collaborative consumption! If you don’t believe us, try renting a car that fits your style , then walk right down the street to pick it up. Voilà!

Maybe you don’t need the car after all? Just use your smart phone to cancel your request. You can even explain your situation to the owner. Chances are they’ll understand.

Flickr Creative Commons image credit: Runnerlan2004.

Today marks the official launch of Getaround in Portland, and it’s hard not to wonder: what makes The City of Roses—or the entire state of Oregon for that matter—an ideal place for peer-to-peer car sharing?

To help us answer this burning question, we turned to Michael Andesen, founder and editor of Portland Afoot, an independent blog and magazine dedicated to “buses, bikes and low-car life.” Below are excerpts of our conversation.

Alternative transportation is mainstream

Most Portlanders don’t keep up with all the details of local transportation because they don’t have to. They just like the fact that it’s cheap and convenient and it’s safe to ride a bus or bike here.

We’re the #1 metro area in the country for bike commuting and #7 for public transit use per person, right behind the big Eastern cities.

Portlanders tend to value happiness more than wealth

We’d rather spend our money on a beer, a book or a day on Mount Hood than export it to an auto company or oil mogul. Low-car life saves us a ton of money that we’ve got better uses for.

Portland is both lo-tech and hi-tech

Portland isn’t the most tech-driven city, in part because there hasn’t been much cash to throw around. In fact, when commercial car sharing started here in the 90s, it didn’t use fancy electronics—just shared keys.

The most important way we’ve embraced technology is being the first city to use open data for TriMet, our transit system. Now anyone from Google to your mom can create a mobile app that tells you which bus to board. This makes it easier for riders while saving the agency money on arrival displays at bus stops.

Not perfect, but getting there

In a perfect Portland, everyone would choose the vehicle for the job it does best: Bus or rail for crosstown commuting; cars for long errand runs, hauling and outdoor recreation; bikes for shorter errands and commutes; walking for routine trips for necessities and local entertainment.

A big reason we don’t do that today is that one of those four—the car—is way more expensive than the other three, so once we buy one we figure we may as well use it.

I’m excited about Getaround because it makes it easier to enjoy the financial rewards of low-car life.

Peer-to-peer car sharing has great potential

Every new person who shares a car on Getaround or signs up to borrow one will add more value to the system than the previous person. Once everyone has access to a Getaround car within walking distance, it’ll be easy for lots of families to ditch their second or third car—which will also save taxpayers a ton of money on highway projects, pollution measures and so on.

If enough people start using peer-to-peer car sharing, low-car life can take off in any neighborhood.

I guess that makes it a perfect quest for Portland: If we all do this together, we’ll all save a bunch of money and we can all go out for a drink.

We’ve been sharing stuff for a really, really long time. The difference now is how we’re leveraging stuff like technology and disruptive business models to quickly and massively scale collaborative consumption.

Check out these examples—many of the “before” examples here are borderline nostalgia:

Borrowing books

Renting movies

Doing your laundry

Taking a trip

Buying used stuff

Catching a ride

Getting medical attention

Can you think of more examples of evolving collaborative consumption? Share them in the comments below!