Look out, Google: Enough General Motors employees wanted to arrive at meetings covered in sweat that the company has introduced a bike-sharing program. Okay, a desire for damp, winded employees probably had less to do with GM's decision than the rising popularity of active-workplace programs, but still—up here in Michigan, it's pretty warm outside.
Employees can now pedal across 330 acres of GM's technical center in Warren, Michigan, instead of driving or taking a shuttle bus to the 61 buildings on site. While biking on the job isn't new—Ferrari workers can ride more than 100 red bikes in Maranello, and a few Tesla employees take bikes inside the Fremont, California, factory—GM claims it is the first U.S. automaker to offer a formal bike-sharing service.
GM's fleet consists of white seven-speed unisex bikes provided by Zagster of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The bikes can be reserved and unlocked from a smartphone app, and even have a neat basket for laptops. We'd have thought GM would have brought its own GMC-branded mountain and road bikes, such as the sportier, inexpensive TopKick and Denali two-wheelers found at Wal-Marts, but they would probably have gone "missing" after a matter of days.
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So does GM really believe that bike sharing will replace car ownership, or as sustainability director David Tulauskas put it, that "today's traditional business model of selling vehicles to individual consumers is under threat?" Likely not, but these days, plans to convince white-collar workers to physically exert themselves at the office are "in." Hey, so long as we're not sitting near them in a one-hour meeting . . .
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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