Car2Go Austin’s newest member…ME
12 Jan
I currently now have FIVE different methods of getting around:
1.) Walking
2.) Riding my bike
3.) Riding my scooter
4.) Driving my car
…and now the newest addition to my fleet of transportation…
5.) Snagging a Car2Go!
But wait…I get to drive around this sexy beast, but I didn’t BUY it.
Car2Go’s are an experimental transportation system that are available in 3 places:
- Ulm, Germany
- Hamburg, Germany
- -and-
- Austin, TX. USA (yet another benefit of living here)!
Basically it’s 400 Smart Cars scattered randomly through the city. If I see one, I can freely hop in, drive away, then leave it wherever I want! EVERYTHING is included in the price….gas, insurance, parking etc. All you need is a little member ship credit card thingy to access all the cars.
It’s like using a car only when you need it….but without having to return it to a rental place. The cars are tiny, and you can park them pretty much anywhere, even nose-first style. I’m nearly as big as the whole car!
I can easily wrap my arms around the width of the Smart car:
This is how I parked one night…no parallel parking needed!
Big pimpin’ in one of the Car2Go’s laying around on the street before a quick spin:
Now it’s cool to just stumble around and find one of these, but if you need help, there’s a free Car2Go iPhone app that locates every available Car2Go around you. It will even tell you fuel levels, how clean it is or if it has any damage. There’s roughly 400 of them humming around the city:
The test drive was fun, and I know several friends who’ve essentially stopped using their cars because they use these so often. What a useful concept!
That’s a really interesting idea.
I’m surprised you didn’t think of it first. ;)
Hahaha….I’m not sure if it’s profitable or not yet. They’re still doing this as a pilot program to see if it’ll work.
What about putting gas in it or if you have an accident? Any sign of these coming to other cities?
Insurance is covered in the $0.35/minute cost. As for gas, if your car is low, every car has a “gas card” that acts like a credit card, but it billed to Car2Go.
Five methods? WRONG. I know for a fact that you also get around by walking on your hands, so that’s SIX methods of transportation!
HA! Yes, my next cross-country trip will be all on my hands :-)
I used a similar service in Toronto and Chicago…ZipCars has lots scattered the city and you can reserve online and the keys are in the car…you pay / hr and it included all costs…they had a decent collection of cars…my only reason for this service was to test drive cars when I was looking for something different without having to deal with the supervised hassle of dealerships.
Agree with above comment, handstand walk is another mode of transport!
Yea, I’ve seen those too. The Car2Go is neat because you can literally leave it anywhere (within a certain radius which is pretty generous).
It’s fantastic for jaunting around downtown areas.
When I lived in Boston, I used Zipcar. Similar to this but each car had a spot that it had to be returned to.
The Car2Go is really neat in the sense you can drop it off wherever you want. Lots of freedom in that!
Thank you for being an open-book Neville.
I came across an interesting article on Kiplinger.com regarding something that you would find interesting…it’s a “crowd-sourced” version of Car2Go or Zip Car called Spride. So instead of 198 vehicles (which I think is are more than reasonable investment by Car2Go) a city could conceivably have thousands.
http://www.kiplinger.com/magazine/archives/turn-your-wheels-into-a-rental.html
Interesting! I wonder if it’ll catch on…
This is awesome ! , I love this idea ! :] Car2go I hope they come to El Paso, Texas ! :D
We have something here in California called Zipcar. I have seen it grow especially in metropolitan areas like San Francisco and college towns where college kids can have access to the cars at a low cost right on campus (they were at my college Ucsc). Zipcar similar to Car2Go have grown tremendously. Now they are competing with U-haul as well by providing trucks. You can also rent Minicoopers! They are definitely profitable at the right location.
I’ve seen ZipCar too…I don’t think it worked too well here.
I’m curious why you have both a car and a scooter.
Aren’t they redundant? And wouldn’t using the rental car, on top of that, be even more redundant?
Scooter you can’t take more than 1 passenger, you can’t ride (comfortably) in the rain, you can’t carry stuff and you can’t ride that far!
Car is still necessary for a lot of reasons.
Hey Nev,
If the Car2Go has you driving your car less, you might check out Mile Meter car insurance. If you’re driving less than the average driver, it can end up cheaper than regular car insurance.
http://www.milemeter.com/
Just curious, who takes all these goofy pictures of you? You don’t set a tripod up in the middle of the road to pose with cars, do you?
LOL! I had a friend take them (who was my passenger right after a spin around town in the Car2Go).
I did NOT put a tripod up in the middle of the road…but it DOES sound like something I’d do :-)
Who pays for the fuel?