Motor manufacturer, Daimler is to trail its very own car club style of car leasing using a fleet of Smart fortwo cars. The Car2go project will launch in Ulm, Stuttgart, Germany from the 24 October and will be the first of its kind from a major manufacturer.
A fleet of smart fortwo vehicles will be made available within the city, functioning as a vehicle pool that can be accessed by anyone at any time. Following a one-off registration process, the Smarts can be hired spontaneously in passing, or pre-booked and used for as long as desired. The project will aim to ensure that a reliable vehicle is available at any time, just a few minutes walk away. The customer gets in and can drive off right away. Once the trip is completed, the driver simply parks the rental smart somewhere within the city limits. Billing for the Ulm project is to the nearest minute, for just 19 cents per minute.
On registering for Car2Go, the customer’s driving licence is provided with an electronic chip that enables the car to be unlocked. Customers have several possibilities for accessing a Car2Go. A spontaneous ‘passing’ rental, for example – wherever a customer finds a free Smart, they can hire it ‘on-the-spot’. To do so, the customer simply holds their driving licence up to a reading device behind the windscreen, gets in, enters their PIN number and drives off. Available vehicles can be located quickly and easily via the internet or a telephone service hotline. Alternatively, vehicles can be booked up to 24 hours in advance. In this case the location and directions to the vehicle reserved are sent to the customer in good time via a text message.
The first phase of the project starting on the 24th will involve the rental of 50 Smart fortwos and will initially be available to employees of Daimler AG only. Robert Henrich, the responsible project manager in Daimler’s Business Innovation division says:
“Our objective in this initial project phase is to gather practical experience of using Car2Go. For example we will analyse the technical implementation, the service concept and the usage behaviour of the customers.”
The next pilot phase will begin in the spring of next year, and will see the size of the vehicle fleet in Ulm increased considerably and the group of possible Car2Go users expanded to include all residents of the city and visitors.
