In Detroit and around the world, automakers are struggling to maintain sales in the face of new competition from mobile services like Lyft and Uber. These ride-sharing startups have spread quickly in most major American cities, connecting consumers to drivers accepting fares through the services. Then there’s startups like RelayRides, which allow people to rent vehicles for short periods of time.
All these startups have one thing in common — they make it easier to function in the United States without owning a car. That makes companies like Ford and General Motors very nervous. Now, those companies are experimenting with similar crowdsourced services to make up for losses to digital competitors.
Experts say mobile apps like Uber will only become more popular in the years to come. Increasingly, U.S. consumers access the Web through their smartphones, and mobile advertising revenue will more than triple in size by next year.
This June, Ford began testing a car-sharing program that would allow Ford buyers an easy way to rent out their cars. The Ford pilot program is modeled off yet another crowdsourcing app, Airbnb, and the automaker has called it the “Smart Mobility Plan.” The six month program will be limited to Ford customers in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, and Washington D.C.
Then there’s General Motors, which recently launched a mobile app of their own in Germany. GM’s CarUnity app allows car owners to rent their ride to friends or customers in the app network.
Thilo Koslowski, vice president at research firm Gartner Inc., says that a decade from now, at least 20% of urban cars will be shared between drivers.
“This is a big bang moment for the auto industry,” Koslowski said. “Imagine all of a sudden 20% of your vehicles sales in the classic sense — to individuals who will be the only user of that car — go away.”
The market for car ownership in developing countries will offset losses in Europe and the United States, for now. But experts say that for every one vehicle dedicated to a car sharing or short-term rental service like Lyft or ZipCar, between four and six new car sales disappear.
“We are dedicated to making it respectful of the neighborhood, to enhance education about the neighborhood’s history and make it a gathering place for the community,” said Tim McKay, president of the Corktown Experience. “We have the opportunity to do this project right, without it being dull…It’s an economic development tool that will utilize the history of Corktown to attract business and tourists.”
After weathering a bankruptcy in 2013, Detroit has recently been reborn as leaner and ready for development. With investments for new construction rolling in, led by Detroit’s own Dan Gilbert, the site of old run down structures next to brand new commercial property space is not unusual. Detroit has faced a property reckoning in recent years. With the sudden population boom happening when the auto industry took off after World War II and the even more sudden population retraction after the plants started to close, many buildings, and even neighborhoods, have been left dormant for years. 
