Austin area residents will now be able to rent an electric car from Daimler’s locally based car2go™ car sharing company. Car2go™ is adding SMART Fortwo Electric Drive (ED) vehicles to their 300 vehicle car sharing fleet in Austin beginning the week of February 13 in Austin, Texas.
Austin, where car2go™ began in the US and is headquartered, has been using a fleet of 300 SMART Fortwo gasoline vehicles in Austin since their beginning in early 2010. SMART Fortwo ED cars were added late last fall to the car2go™ fleet with the start up of the 300 vehicle all electric program in San Diego. San Diego was the first deployment of an all electric on-demand car fleet in North America.
Based on the success of the Electric Drive introduction in San Diego, car2go™ will now begin a measured phase-in of the SMART Fortwo ED to the fleet in Austin. The first two will be available to car2go™ members starting Valentine’s week. The Austin fleet will have a mix of electric and gasoline SMART Fortwo cars as they add additional Electric Drive units over the next few months.
The SMART Fortwo ED is physically identical to the gas version. We drove one of the two new car2go™ SMART Fortwo ED vehicles for four days around the city and up in the Bee Cave, Lakeway and Lake Travis areas, where we live, using it for several hours each of two consecutive days running normal errands.
Driving the electric SMART is simple and easy. It performs in the city every bit as well as the gas version. There was plenty of power and range in the battery for all of the trips we made each day. We found that 20% of the charge available was equal to about 17-20 miles of travel depending on speed and hills even running the air conditioning at all times.
Acceleration from a stop sign through 35 -40 mph is very comparable to the gas version. It does have a governor on the electric engine which caps the speed at 64 mph, and it is more than adequate for most of the area.
The SMART Fortwo ED vehicles have a charge indicator on the dash showing the percent of charge remaining (this is the “gas” gauge). The electric SMART vehicles will be monitored continuously by car2go™ computer and taken out of service when the charge level reaches 20% to enable car2go™ to handle recharging the vehicle immediately.
Plug-In Partners ChargePoint charge cards will be in each vehicle if the member wants or needs to charge it while they have it in service. The SMART Fortwo vehicle is equipped with a navigation system and the screen will show where charging stations are located, if needed.
Car2go™ was originally referred to as an “urban mobility” concept and was targeted primarily to college students and young urban adults. The car share (as it is known now) idea has expanded to encompass all urban and semi urban age groups. Austin member’s ages run from the twenties to well into the sixties. There are 21,000 car2go™ members in Austin.
Members may have no car and use car2go™ exclusively while others have another car for road trips and use car2go™ for around town travel. There are also members out of the city in places like Cedar Park where a member takes the surface rail train into Austin, picks up a car2go™ vehicle and goes to work.
Others drive into the city and park in a local garage for the day. When they need to go take care of some business around town during the day, they get a car2go™ vehicle. There are also corporate members like Whole Foods who have cars in their garage that employees can use on company business around town during the day.
Membership costs $35.00 for set up and a car2go™ key card which is used to access the car and charge for time used. Cost to rent either gas or electric SMART Fortwo vehicles is $.35 per minute with an hourly maximum of $12.99 and daily maximum of $65.99 (prices do not include taxes). All fuel, insurance, maintenance and parking costs are included. Yes, any parking meter location in the city is free and there are also designated car2go™-only parking spaces available.
The service area to pick up available car2go™ vehicles covers 52 square miles in Austin. The area is roughly within Steck/183 to the North, 183 to the East, Mopac/Route 1 to the West and Ben White/71 to the South. The cars are available throughout that area based on where they were parked by the last user. Car2go™ vehicles can (and are) taken out of the area as needed by the member. They just have to be returned to the service area when the rental is completed.
Available cars can be located by accessing the car2go™ website from a computer or by using a free app from car2go™ for iPhone or Android smart phones. The SMART Fortwo ED vehicles available will show on your app screen in green with the gasoline units showing in blue. You can choose gas or electric based on your preference or availability.
You go to the car you want, pass your member key card over the reader behind the windshield and, if the car is available (in service), the door will unlock for you to get in, start up and go. When you reach your destination, you have the option of to put the car back in service ending the charges or holding the car for you (charges continue) while you conduct your business by putting it out of service and taking the key with you.
Cars can be reserved through the app or by calling the car2go™ office. Reservations are made in 15 minute increments prior to time needed and managed by the car2go™ real time global positioning tracking computer to advise you of the vehicle being held for you as the reservation period begins. Reservations can be made up to 24 hours in advance.
In Austin, the average rental period for each rental is 29 minutes and each car is rented 3.4 times per day. At any given time there are over 100 cars available in the Austin area depending on the time of day.
Jim Nelson is a member of the Texas Auto Writers Association
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