Smart car2go Mobile Rental Service Testing in Germany

Just 19 cents a minute

Smart car2go
Smart car2go
Smart car2go
Smart car2go
Smart car2go
Smart car2go
Smart car2go
Smart car2go
Smart car2go

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Comments (12)

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afterace2

i think it's not a bad idea acutally.

October 21, 2008 5:25 pm

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Kepe

nice idea, but there are a few problems. first off, the pre-paid fuel card. 19 cents a minute is not a bad price for a full canister of fuel. and how are they going to find the car if it's driven to a place where there's no GPS reception? a tunnel for example.

October 21, 2008 5:59 pm

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4 replies

radmeister

Ulm i'm sure doesn't have too many tunnels, and obviously if you see that the last spot it was recorded was before a tunnel and it never came out it's in the tunnel. Also there cellphone reception hubs in most tunnels in europe that relay the signal from above, they will soon if not already use that for gps.

October 21, 2008 8:21 pm

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Kepe

Ok, but that still leaves the fuel card problem.

October 22, 2008 6:44 am

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Joe_Limon

fuel card problem solved, if the person is trying to fill up with any car but a smart car with the paint job the gas station attendant simply reports it. Or the company itself gets cued as to when their card is used and video cameras in and around the gas station record the "victim"

October 22, 2008 4:54 pm

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radmeister

I'm sure the card doesn't just sit in the glovebox, these are germans we're talking about. I would expect it sits in a card reader and it time codes when the card is taken out and by what user(because you are logged in) and that info is sent to the central system.

October 22, 2008 6:46 pm

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Bristol411S3

There are several companies doing this with other cars in the UK, StreetCar being one of them. They are growing in popularity for city dwellers, although are often rented for family days out. This is where the Smart fails. StreetCar uses Golfs I think.

October 21, 2008 5:59 pm

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NardoW12

They may face some problems, overall, this is a very good idea....

October 21, 2008 6:07 pm

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desiathate

This is funny... just had a lecture in my design class about "Radical Innovation" Opp. of New/Creative design. this is a perfect example of that. Love it! Hope it grows and comes to the U.S

October 22, 2008 12:16 am

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daviepops

Now that is a very smart Smart innovation ... but the cars may need some kind of GPS locking device that prevented them being taken beyond the city limits

October 22, 2008 8:59 am

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jalmonte91

We have this in the U.S., it's zipcar.com Finally the U.S. got something on the world. Oh and they are not smart cars, these are real cars for $10 an hour.

October 22, 2008 11:06 am

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Hiromichi

It looks same trial as car-sharing. Difference between car2go is that this system allows users drop the cars anywhere in the city. To maintain them, a service team needs to pick the cars and the cost for the service team may be higher than maintenance cost for car-sharing system. Dropping off the car is also a problem in the city such as Tokyo because parking needs always rather high cost and 19 cent per minute would not cover the parking cost, I suppose. I think this system is not more advantageous than car-sharinig.

October 22, 2008 10:48 pm

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