[Bartweiss]

> A tow truck took us to a lot with reception, where the rental failed to start... Still, cars without reception become vulnerable in a few scenarios... when the vehicle battery dies.

> I shudder to think about limping back to a trailhead with no more water in my backpack, only to find a car that would not start. Or getting locked out and marooned in Death Valley, perhaps with medicine trapped in the car.

Yep, "car died at the trailhead" is hardly a novel or Zipcar-specific problem. I've known plenty of people who camped for few days, packed up at dusk, and found themselves with a dead battery and no one around to jump it. Taking a Zipcar with essential medicine into Death Valley is a scary thought, but it's recklessness in a dangerous place rather than some esoteric flaw of Zipcar.

It's a shame, because there are real issues here. Lacking a physical carkey is a real drawback that means you can't wait in your dead car or open the hood to jump it. Having your car die in the woods because you exceeded your reservation time is bad for the user, the next user, and the company. But the article spins those narrow issues as life-or-death flaws, conflates "dead car" with "Zipcar broke", and puts "Zipcars normally work without service" down in paragraph seven after implying in paragraph two that this is a consistent problem.