Zipcar, a car-sharing program has been around since 2000 (started with only 2 cars). Members can drive cars by the day or the hour, gas and insurance included.

Enter $4 gas. Suddenly the business model goes haywire. Zipcar’s price increases haven’t kept up with inflation.

Why, then, hasn’t Zipcar raised its prices? Several reasons. First, Zipcar’s users aren’t tremendous gas guzzlers. Seventy-five percent of Zipsters take the car out on an hourly basis (at usually between $6 and $10 per hour). Those drivers probably aren’t re-enacting the Lewis and Clark expedition, so their gas costs, no matter the price per gallon at the pump, are small. These are high-revenue, low-cost travelers.

Also, the spike in gas prices has been a double-edged sword for the company—it’s hurting their margins, but it’s attracting thousands of new customers. The company is growing at three times the rate it was at this time last year, according to COO Mark Norman. It’s averaging 10,000 new customers a month, which is a hefty 4 percent to 5 percent increase for a company with 225,000 total members.

More customers also means a more efficient use of its fleet. Ideally, having an extra few hundred Zipcar users in a metro area means that more of those high-revenue, low-cost riders can take out a car.

Zipcar’s idea was ahead of its time (often ideas get punished for that), and didn’t make a profit when gas prices were lower. Can it survive with membership finally reaching critical mass, but evil gas pricing out of control?

Sure do hope so!! I could definitely see a Fuel Price Protection program working for them.

We guess Ford Motor Co. learned its lesson. It dropped its goal of becoming profitable by 2009, and will cut production of trucks and SUVs for the rest of the year due to fast-rising gas prices.

Production cuts hurt automakers because the companies book the vehicles as ’sold’ once they leave the factory.

“We all would like the basic business environment to not have deteriorated, but clearly the most important thing we can do for the long-term success of the Ford Motor Company is deal with this reality,” Ford President and Chief Executive Alan Mulally said in a conference call Thursday

Some analysts say the company is adequately responding to the challenging market.

GM said it would cut 2Q North American production by 5%. Chrysler has already cut North American production by 16% for the first 4 months of this year.

Most of us have been worrying about the high cost of putting gas into the tank, but have we forgotten to worry about keeping it in there until our engine needs it?

There are drivers out there tooling around on OPG (Other People’s Gas). All it takes is a hose to transfer fuel from your car to their car. You can make it more difficult by replacing your regular gas cap with a locking gas cap. It only costs $15-$20. Oh, and get the right one for your car model or you’ll be seeing the dreaded “check engine” light.

Don’t say it can’t happen to you. NYPD ordered 400 locking gas caps (even cop cars are getting hit).

Park in garages or well lit areas. It’s not the size of your tank, but as with everything — location, location, location.

Jim Fraser at The Energy Blog writes a nice article about the advent of electric cars. This is the real advent. We’re talking mass production here, not some entry in a science fair. Well, they’re starting out at 1 or 2 cars a week, but hope to get up to 100/month by next year.

Tesla Motors announced that it is starting regular production of the Tesla Roadster, an electric car. 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds, 200 mile range between charges. (It runs on laptop batteries. )

Put your order in now, and start saving your pennies. Base price is $109,000.

Think Global (Norwegian Co.) is planning to introduce its electric car, Th!nk City to North America in 2009.

Electric cars are nothing new to Think Global. This company has 17 years of experience in the electric vehicle biz, ans has 1,200 vehicles on Norwegian roads.

We’re thinking Green!

Scheduled to begin Sept. next year, the Progressive Automotive X Prize competition will award $10 million to the first team that can build and bring to market a car that gets 100 mpg. It’s international, so no downsizing the field.

Some of the contestants were shown at the NY International Auto Show. No major US auto company has announced it would compete. VW says it has been there, done that. Honda thinks that the 62 mpg for its hydrogen fuel-cell car is pretty darn good.

“We need a car that is not just a concept but can be made in mass quantities at a reasonable cost for the average American,” says Jack Hidary, chairman of the Coalition Advocating for Smart Transportation and a donor to the X Prize’s new effort. “Unfortunately, Detroit has not stepped up to the plate, they have fought CAFE [Corporate Average Fuel Economy] standards every step of the way.”

60 teams from 9 countries have entered the competition, including high school and college students. Sounds like some serious thinking outside the box is going on here.