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Comment by RandallBrown | Hacker News Reader

In Seattle, a car2go trip that costs $15 would be 36 minutes long. Car2Go has no mileage fee for trips under 150 miles.

The same UberX trip would be $13 before taking mileage into account. If it took you 36 minutes, I assume you went at least 3 miles. So that makes the trip cost at least 17 bucks.

I've found that Car2Go is quite a bit cheaper than using either Lyft or UberX. I usually use them together though. I'll take a Car2Go to the bar, then take a rideshare home after drinking too much to drive.

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Car2go also has a $14.99 / hour maximum, so you could potentially drive it a lot more and for multiple stops. No way you could hire an UberX to drive you around the city for an hour for that price.

Doesn't Car2Go require you to bring the car back to it's starting point?

Are there multiple locations you can drop the car at, and if not, how do you handle that when taking it to the bar?

You're thinking of Zipcar.

With Car2Go, you leave the car in any legal on-street parking space (sometimes limited to 15 min+/1 hr+/2 hr+ depending on city) in the "home area" (borders depend on the city but are typically pretty expansive). The company contracts with each city to basically pay a flat rate for street and metered parking for all the cars yearly.

No, you can leave it nearly anywhere in the service area. The particular rules are up to the city you're in; in Seattle they amount to "you can park anywhere, provided it allows a normal car to park for at least two hours, and doesn't become illegal to park during certain times (e.g. bus lanes)".

I gather from their website the car may be returned to "any non-restricted curb side parking throughout the car2go Home Area"

How extensive the home area is depends heavily on the city. In Los Angeles, it looks like a tiny sliver of the city [1] whereas in Berlin the coverage looks a lot better [2] (although it's possible I'm being confused by different map zoom levels)

[1] https://www.car2go.com/en/losangeles/ [2] https://www.car2go.com/en/berlin/

Car2go can be parked at any street legal parking spot with 2+ hr limits. There are no restrictions really.

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