Friday 8 October 2010

Car2Go


I saw these Smart cars on Granville Island and didn't think a whole lot about it. In the middle of taking pics I got a phone call and by the time the call finished I'd forgotten what I had been doing. 

Days later I decided to find out what Car2Go was. I've been involved with car sharing for 13 years and hadn't heard of them.

You can see from the website that they are in just two cities so far. Ulm, Germany and Austin, TX. 

It took about 30 seconds on Google to figure out why these cars were in Vancouver. They are part of a test project. 

Car2Go uses a very sophisticated geo-tracking system. So sophisticated in fact that when I checked to see where their cars were in Austin the map showed one of them in Vancouver (the other may have been on it's way back to Austin because it seemed to be someplace like Arizona or Nevada. 

My guess is that we won't see Car2Go in Vancouver any time soon since we've already got the Co-operative Auto Network (240 cars) and Zip Car (80?). 

3 comments :

Genie -- Paris and Beyond said...

Wayne, so glad that you gave us the story of Car2Go. It sounds faintly familiar but did not know that it was in Austin, TX. That is a novel concept but it makes sense.

Have a good weekend,
Genie

Virginia said...

Well you guys in Lotusville have it figured out. Wish I could ditch my car and go in this direction. Sadly I can't.
V

Unknown said...

It is a great idea Wayne. I checked the site for Ulm, Germany and found it fair priced, That might be a viable solution to heavy downtown traffic.
Thanks for sharing.
Have a great weekend.
Costas