In the next five years Peterson wants to bring Flexcar to 30 markets, but the question remains whether enough people in enough cities will be interested. (Each market, Peterson estimates, takes about 18 to 24 months to mature to profitability.) Flexcar doesn't expect to be profitable until 2005, although its two oldest markets, Seattle and Portland, Ore., operate in the black. (Starbucks now has five Flexcars on its Seattle campus.) Businesses now account for 40% of revenues. Increasingly Flexcar's growth is coming from businesses that find it's cheaper to rent Flexcars than maintain a fleet of corporate cars. To date, Flexcar has been growing slowly, expanding only where it can partner with transportation agencies, universities, and other organizations. "One of the objections transit agencies always get from commuters," says Peterson, "is 'What if I need a car during the day?'" Flexcar's answer: You rent one on an hourly basis. Ideally, Flexcar will serve as a complement to public transportation.
"They didn't know I had this in the back of my mind for years anyway," he says. Seattle officials tried Hertz, Budget, Enterprise-no one was interested. (He's the man behind dual gas-electric buses and "articulated buses," which are twice as long and bend in the middle.) Unbeknownst to Peterson, Seattle's public transportation agency had also been researching car sharing and was looking for a partner to run a pilot program. He had been making idea-scouting trips for years while at the helm of public transportation agencies in Seattle, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. Peterson discovered car sharing in the early 1990s on a trip to Europe, where the concept has been popular for more than a decade.