Daimler Brings Car-Sharing to the Lone Star State

Daimler Brings Car-Sharing to the Lone Star State
By Tony Borroz November 18, 2009 | 3:20 pm | Categories: Infrastructure, Mass Transit

Swing by Austin, Texas next year, and you’ll see people driving Smart cars they don’t even own. Daimler’s finalized a deal to bring car-sharing to the Texas capital, something we told you was in the works back in March.

Austin will be the American showcase for car2go and an experiment to see how car sharing plays out here in the states. Yes, we know about Zipcar, but car2go is aimed more at a business-to-business model. Or more accurately it’s a business-to-government model, since car2go will be in a partnership with the City of Austin aimed at providing personal, on-demand mobility for more than 13,000 city employees.

This first phase starts with 200 smart fortwo vehicles and a defined group of users, namely, city employees. Car2go aims to increase the number of vehicles at some point in 2010 and make them accessible to everyone. The goal is to make city driving as easy as using a mobile phone, planning for the system to be easy, flexible, reasonably priced and work as a progressive solution to growing challenges of urban mobility.

The car sharing system is fairly uncomplicated. The fortwos are available 24/7 to all members. Members can grab any available vehicle on the street, or, if you’re one of those plan ahead sorts, you can reserve a car online ahead of time.

Being able to use a “car on demand” is a significant difference from traditional car-sharing programs like Zipcar, and another big difference is that car2go allows you to use the vehicle for as long as you like without committing to a specific return time. Also, car2go allows users to make one way trips. Charges are not based on distance, but on time, with rates starting by the minute.

“Car2go is an innovative answer to current and future mobility needs in urban areas. We are pleased with the success we achieved in Ulm, Germany – the first car2go city - and we are ready for the next logical step on our way to an international rollout,” says Daimler board member Dr. Thomas Weber.

Let’s see if Austin can do as well as Ulm, when car2go Smarts are rented as many as 500 to 1,000 times a day and used by 15,000 customers — the equivalent of more than 15 percent of city residents with a drivers license.