The Rise of the Sharing Economy

Zipcar recently released its second annual survey of how the millennial generation feels about transportation and car ownership, and the research not surprisingly lighted on a number of findings that will enthuse anyone who cares about the car-sharing company’s economic prospects. Millennials – 18-to-34-year-olds, that is – actively want to drive less, care more about their impact on the environment and fear the costs of personal car ownership relative to drivers their parents’ age.

In the survey of 1,045 adults of varying ages, more than half of the millennials said they drive less because they want to protect the environment. And 70 percent agreed that they’d drive less if there were more transportation alternatives available to them. Oddly (or perhaps, sadly), a whopping 68 percent admitted that they also drive less because they sometimes chose to hang out online with friends instead of leaving their computers to see them (for the 55 and older set, that number is 24 percent).