Sometime early 2008

right in the middle of a major change in my former job, I was contacted regarding an exciting new project within Daimler. As the project was looking for an IT guy, I was more than happy to become part of the car2go project or City Smart as it was called at that time, an opportunity which I now consider as a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Innovating Urban Mobility

Most of you know what car sharing is, right? Instead of owning a car by yourself, you basically share one car with lets many other people, being able to reserve the car for your personal use. Car sharing has been around since the 80th, but hasn't changed much since that time.

But if you think that this is cool you haven't seen car2go yet. In web terminology car2go is basically car sharing 2.0 compared to classic car sharing. Other than with normal car sharing, you typically have hundreds of cars at your disposal, being able to use any of those cars at any time, sponaneously or by reserving the car in advance for a specific time.

Feels like your own car

Finding a available car2go is easy. Just go on the Internet, use your smart phone or call the service center. You can start your usage by facing a membership card against a reader that is behind the windshield of the car. Within 5 seconds, the car2go unlocks its doors and you are ready to go.

But that's just one part of car2go's flexibility. At any point of your trip you can decide to end your rental at any location - even right before your home. Flexibility is the key feature of car2go at the same time providing an availability that comes close to your own car. Give it a try ...

car2go is currently available in Ulm - Germany, Austin - Texas, Hamburg - Germany. We will soon launch car2go in Vancouver - Canada and end of the year we are going to introduce a fleet of 300 EV car2go in Amsterdam - Netherlands. Expect additional rollouts in other major cities in the near future ...