Car2Go Reduces Car Ownership, Transportation Research Center Finds
citylab.com
citylab.com
Granted it's Berlin which has a somewhat peculiar culture but even in the US it seems to be catching on, at least in the large cities.
It seems like the car has lost its cultural appeal as a symbol of freedom & wealth. Now it's just one of many options for transportation.
I cannot wait to see how this could transform cities. Car sharing together with self-driving cars means we need far fewer and they can disappear into a depot when unused. A typical road has four lanes (two for parking, two for driving). You could cut that in half by eliminating parked cars, possibly also eliminate one of the remaining lanes if automation allows for more efficient usage. Suddenly the space available for pedestrians / green / street life has more than doubled, noise and pollutants almost eliminated by electric cars... For dense cities, it could dramatically improve the quality of life.
Which is why I'd like to see cities or housing developers taking a more open minded approach towards integrating something like car2go into their projects.
But for municipalities car2go's "commercial-ness" is some sort of stigma (which is wierd because it's not really being a high profit raking venture).
To "dramatically improve quality of life" the many low hanging fruits would have to be tackled by local government. (smaller) cities should consider franchising it somehow (ie paying Daimler for being part of the car2go network).
But seriously, the only feature that is missing from car2go in my opinion is the option to have someone get you your car to you, in case there isn't one available at the time. Also, I've only used the 2-person smart until now, I'm eager to see anything bigger soon. But anyway: when I lived in southern Germany I had to fuel up my car every 2 weeks or so, even though I had been driving mostly 15 minutes to work and back, and some light shopping. Here in north I tanked at the beginning of June, and still have to refuel. I just drive once a week to the market square, and for all other purposes I use metro system. On the other hand, this was fully inconviveable in the south, where distances were greater, and frequency lower. Every short ride was for me a huge endeavour, that took at least 40-50 minutes, definitelly not worth the time, hence I preferred to drive and sit in comfort.
The only obvious solution would be more tolling, but I'm concerned (in the USA) about our ability to actually implement that politically. (In the USA most roads and parking are free -- nondrivers subsidize drivers.)
I remember I got a credit for $30 the last time I used it and spent about $20 to get to downtown Austin from about 3 miles away and had to keep circling around to find a spot to park it in which I was paying for.
I haven't used it since then. It's far easier to just take the bus and walk from the bus station.
It was slightly cheaper than Uber when they were still in Austin, but not by much.
Zipcar has been quietly asking about this in surveys they give out. My guess is they're probably going to fight car2go if they try to get the regulation overturned and if not, just join them in the same game.
Given that Car2Go and ReachNow (BMW's car-sharing beta in Seattle) seem to be thriving, it seems wise for Zipcar to explore true one-way trips (i.e., park anywhere).
In fact if I had to park in designated spots I'd basically never use it.
That confirms my long-standing tin-foil hat theory about car2go: it's just an advertising venture disguised as a car sharing service. It doesn't have to make money, just cost less than they would spend on advertising and put smartcars all over major cities.
We recently got a locally owned car sharing service, and I choose it first whenever possible.
> Given Smart cars’ somewhat dismal U.S. sales records, it seems unlikely that legions of former car2go members will one day clamor to put Fortwos of their own in their garages.
I use car2go all the time and I can attest that the Smart FourTwo is total garbage. It's the worst car I've ever driven.
That being said, while I'd never buy a FourTwo, the car2go service is great. Driving a terrible car for a few minutes for some errand that requires a car is no big deal.
I'm convinced the placement of the key, though, is going to end up the cause of someone's death. I've bumped it and turned off the engine while driving more than once.
When I lived in San Diego I used car2go often, and when they were electrics I loved them. When they moved the fleet to gas vehicles I was surprised to see the smart fortwo apparently has the crappiest automatic transmission on the face of the Earth.