Austin just made history today thanks to my bosses at City Hall. 200 Smart cars are coming to our City as a part of the Smart car2go program!
I interned at
Austin CarShare in 2007 and wrote a few reports on challenges and deficiencies it encounters as a small non-profit. The organization is definitely trying to serve a need in our community, but the cards have been stacked against it for a while. As a non-profit, its costs are high and pockets shallow. Aside from that,
ZipCar has had its eyes on Austin for a while, and there is no way for Austin
CarShare to compete sustainably.
ZipCar is an international
corportation with tremendously lower rates, thousands more vehicles, and dozens of successful markets.
I hadn't heard anything about ZipCar in Austin recently and was blown away when I heard this great news about cars2go, which was not even on my radar. Their policies are so much more intuitive than Austin CarShare's, and even ZipCar's.
Here's the lowdown from
Wired:
Whenever a car is needed, it can be rented on the spot, or it can be pre-booked via mobile phone or the internet. A Smart car2go can be used for as long as needed, and can be returned to any unoccupied public parking space within the area of operation. So think of it as a car-sharing program run directly by a car manufacturer. And the costs are reasonable too: 19 euro cents per minute, and that covers everything, taxes, insurance, mileage and even fuel. They also rent by the hour and day, if needed, 9.90 euros per hour or 49 euros per day. All you have to do is register (for free) and have a valid driver's license. Once you're registered, you can open any car2go by means of a card reader placed behind the windshield.
Renting by mobile phone is the way to go, and free registration is absolutely fantastic. I love that one can see an available car, text their information to rent the car, and go! People decide when and where they return the cars giving an even greater amount of freedom.
The first phase of the Smart car2go program in Austin will be fleet replacement for the City. 200 cars (using only 100 spaces) will be available to employees this fall. The following year the program will open to the public. And if we succeed in Austin, other American cities will follow. This timeline is brilliant in my humble opinion. Get the cars here, peak interest, and create loyalty and word of mouth among the thousands of City employees, leading to a significant beginning customer base for Phase 2.
The program first kicked off in Ulm, Germany, a city significantly smaller than Austin. How'd it go?
Robert Henrich, responsible project manager at Daimler AG, sums up: “The success of the first pilot phase surprised even us and shows how much importance already is attached to forward-looking mobility concepts today. In just two weeks more than 500 customers had registered with car2go – a number we had not anticipated. Sometimes I could see from my office window how employees sprinted to the parking lot after work to get a car2go before they were all gone.” Their enthusiasm and the interest of the people of Ulm persist. In peak periods the entire fleet of 50 smart fortwo was being used to full capacity and could have been greatly expanded based on the user demand. Since the start, 8,000 rentals have been registered, and per day as many as eight customers have used one and the same vehicle. (from egmcartech.com)
The writer for Wired, undoubtedly one who has not visited Austin, also had this to say:
Smart is looking to bring on-demand use of its cars to Austin. You know, in Texas. Yes, the same Texas with all the steers, BBQ, cowboys, Bush family members and general vehicle xenophobia.
Sure, he may be right about the BBQs and Bushes, but here's our chance to prove him wrong about the vehicle xenophobia. I'm positive that a visit to Austin would do the trick.
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