Mobility Concepts
car2go
In the car2go mobility concept launched in Ulm, Germany in late 2008, Daimler is meeting customer demands for flexible urban mobility. The scheme now offers widespread availability of smart fortwo vehicles in a range of cities, in North America as well as in Europe, that can be hired at any time of day or night following initial registration - without a contract, minimum charge or minimum rental duration.
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Innovative car2go mobility concept launched in Hamburg. |
When they are finished the users can leave the vehicles in any public parking space or in a specially marked car park. Usage is charged on a minute-to-minute basis; this fee covers tax, insurance, mileage, and even fuel.
On registering with car2go an electronic seal is affixed to the customer’s driving licence that enables the available vehicle to be opened. The customer can come by a car2go in a variety of ways. One example is instant rental when passing by: if there’s an available smart, the user can rent it on the spot. The customer simply holds his driving licence against a reader in the windscreen area, gets in, enters his personal ID number into the vehicle and drives off. Available vehicles can be located at any time quickly and easily via the Internet or a smartphone app. | ||||||||||
The rental period can be for any length of time. During stops – such as for shopping - the vehicle remains reserved for the user at highly reduced rates. When the customer wants to return his car2go, he parks the vehicle in any public parking space in the city zone. In addition, specially marked car2go parking spaces are provided, for example at stations or shopping centres.
Due to the high customer take-up the vehicle fleet in Ulm, Germany, and Austin, Texas, was not only increased by 50 percent to 300 vehicles in March 2011, but it was completely overhauled: the smart fortwo car2go edition is the first car-sharing car configured ex-works, fitted with an intelligent stop-start function, newly developed telematics and a solar roof that supplies the electrical consumers with power. | ||||||||||
After a good two-and-a-half years car2go can boast impressive figures: Worldwide more than 100,000 customers have already registered with car2go and the smart vehicles have been rented more than 2 million times. Additionally, there are more than 600 purely electrically driven and locally emission-free car2go vehicles on the roads worldwide – corresponding to around a seventh of the total car2go fleet. | ||||||||
After launching the pilot project in Ulm in 2009 the mobility concept has expanded to seven countries and 20 cities worldwide:
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Country |
City |
Launched in |
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Germany |
Ulm |
March 2009 |
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Hamburg (including the airport area) |
April 2011 | |
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Berlin |
October 2011 | |
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Düsseldorf |
February 2012 | |
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Cologne |
as of September 2012 | |
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Stuttgart |
November 2012 | |
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Munich |
June 2013 | |
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Austria |
Vienna (including the airport area) |
December 2011 |
|
United Kingdom |
Birmingham |
May 2013 |
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London |
December 2012 | |
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Netherlands |
Amsterdam |
April 2011 |
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USA |
Austin |
May 2010 |
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Denver |
June 2013 | |
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San Diego |
November 2011 | |
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Washington D.C. |
December 2011 | |
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Portland |
February 2012 | |
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Miami |
July 2012 | |
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Seattle |
December 2012 | |
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Canada |
Vancouver |
June 2011 |
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Toronto |
June 2012 | |
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Calgary |
July 2012 |
as of May 2013
Queries from other cities about this creative, flexible and affordable mobility initiative for tomorrow’s inner-city transport have been received. Overall car2go will operate in 40 to 50 European and numerous American cities in the next five years. In particular the establishment of car2go in Stuttgart as part of a “living lab” will generate experience of a new quality of individual mobility. A joint information and payment system is planned to enable an interface with public transport.
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