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Competition is gearing up in car-sharing, with the nation's largest service rolling in to battle a home-grown Bay Area startup as car-sharing speeds up nationwide.
City CarShare has grown to a fleet of 80 cars and more than 2,000 regular customers in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Palo Alto since its debut in March 2001. Now a second carsharing service, Flexcar, says it projects rapid expansion throughout in the Bay Area as well.
"We plan on being in every region in the Bay Area by this time next year," says Rod Diridon Jr., Flexcar's general manager for the Bay Area. Flexcar is starting small, with about 100 members using 23 vehicles stationed in Palo Alto and, beginning Nov. 20, in San Jose.
But Flexcar has expanded quickly since its birth in 1999, growing from its home base of Seattle into the nation's largest car-sharing company with operations in...