Car utilization platform Carma has partnered in a special collaboration with Bay Area artist Zio Ziegler to immediately launch a limited number of electric vehicles wrapped in art designed by the popular artist and made available to reserve by the hour. The art cars are part of the startup’s wider initiative to get fewer cars on the road, relieve traffic and congestion, and lower emissions by increasing utilization of cars. Carma will release a total of 16 wrapped electric vehicles featuring five different original Ziegler designs available to reserve at the company’s lowest price points.

“Our goal with this collaboration was to create moving pieces of art to showcase Zio’s stunning work while simultaneously bringing attention to electric vehicles,” said Josh Gotthelf, CMO, Carma. “Carma has the greenest fleet of any round trip carsharing organization in the U.S., and this project is another demonstration of our commitment to giving our members and communities smarter transportation options.”

Drivers can charge the electric vehicles at any charging station, and the cost of charging specifically at ChargePoint stations is included in the reservation. Wrapped cars will be available for reservation as any other economy car in the Carma fleet with hourly prices starting at under $6 an hour. Members can find charging stations online and on Carma’s mobile app and electric vehicle guides are located online.

Since June of last year, Carma has been in a strategic alliance with City CarShare, the Bay Area’s nonprofit carsharing organization, as both groups share a joint mission to help get fewer cars on the road. Under this partnership, the art cars are an innovative experiment coming out of the $1.7 million grant the Metropolitan Transportation Commission awarded City CarShare a few years earlier to deploy a fleet of electric vehicles within the City and County of San Francisco and the City of Berkeley.

Charging stations have expanded to include locations in both San Francisco and the East Bay including downtown Berkeley, UCSF (Inner Sunset), Cole Valley, City College of SF (Westwood Park/Ingleside), Panhandle, China Basin, Mission, Mission Bay, and the Civic Center.

The wrapped cars will be available for rent all over the city and in 3 different models:

  • Ford C-Max Energi Electric Hybrid
  • Ford Focus All-Electric
  • Chevy Volt Hybrid

As an added incentive, the art cars are free to use by the hour to qualified local creatives and artists. “I’m excited to team up with Carma on this project that helps bring free car usage to creatives in the Bay Area. I want these art cars to be available to anyone with a creative vision in order to help them facilitate their projects or day-to-day necessities,“ said Zio Ziegler, featured artist of the campaign. “A society, while facilitated by technology, often seems to be guided and remembered by its creativity. The goal is that these art cars serve as a reminder of that on a daily basis, and make it a bit easier for those creatives.”

To make a reservation, please visit www.citycarshare.org. To find out more about Carma, visit the website here or follow them on Twitter.

About Carma:

Carma is pioneering the Ownerless Car movement to transform wasted parking lot hours into dynamic mobility services that respond to people’s different transportation needs throughout the day. The same car that takes you and your neighbors to work should also move your colleague to her off-site meeting and take your kids to the beach over the weekend. With Carma’s first fleet of over 400 shared cars, people are already living the future of transportation.