When you see a free smart in the app or generally on the roadside, you can unlock it directly on the car using a card or app and drive around the area with it. You don't have to park the vehicle where you picked it up and you don't have to pay insurance, tax or anything else. Only a minute fee.
For this purpose smart originally had a small fleet in Ulm and Neu-Ulm. From 2008 onwards, they tried out how this works with 200 smart cdi. These vehicles came off the production line in Hambach and were then converted for their application. In March 2009 they were replaced by the first "real" car2go series. This article is also about this equipment, so called car2go edition.
In 2019, car2go and DriveNow became the joint venture called ShareNow. The world's first mass-produced car sharing car was presented on September 30, 2010. The rollout was then planned for 2011.
At the smart plant in Hambach, Lorraine, the two-seaters with their white and blue design rolled off the assembly line as a fully configured “car2go edition”. The car2go edition is equipped with completely newly developed telematics hardware, a new control unit with touchscreen and a specially developed smart ED2 solar roof. The latter was only installed by car2go at the very beginning and was only used in big quantities in Hamburg.
The car2go edition was equipped with a completely new generation of hardware that maked the fully automated rental process even more convenient and secure. The world's most powerful car sharing telematics system was optimally designed for the requirements of car2go and was developed in in cooperation with the Ulm-based Daimler TSS GmbH.
The centerpiece is the new control unit with a large, touch-sensitive screen. The vehicle key, which was previously stored in the glove compartment, will also find its safe place in it. Up to four chip cards (e.g. for recharging and for entering parking garages) can also be conveniently accommodated there in their own slots. The telematics unit is directly networked with the vehicle electronics and can thus control the immobilizer: If a customer starts a rental process with their access authorization and by entering a personal PIN, the immobilizer is deactivated and it is activated again immediately after the rental process has been completed . The user interface has also been completely redesigned: both the operating menu and the radio and navigation system that has already been integrated have been significantly upgraded to the factory navigation system, are even more convenient to use and graphically correspond to the car2go design.
1st generation of the telematics unit
Here the principle was very simple. You registered once and had an electronic sticker stuck on your driver's license. With it you could then unlock the vehicle at the windshield and get the key inside after getting in.
2nd generation of the telematics unit
This was gradually introduced in February 2014. With it it was now possible to activate the smart via app or with your own customer card. With the driver's license it was no longer possible. Since then, you have to show your valid driver's license to one of the car2go offices in longer intervals.
After working at car2go
Usually, the vehicles with car2go are always in operation for 2-4 years. The card reader and the car2go navigation system are then removed and the vehicles end up on the open market. They can usually be recognized by the fact that they have no equipment whatsoever. Only leather seats and no rental battery. In terms of color, all car2go that came on the free market can be recognized with their white (panels) and silver (tridion cell) or white (tridion cell). Many have a 22 kW charger, but the ED3 from 2013 also includes some that only had a 3.7 kW charger.
Although the first car2go were based on the 451 preFacelift and thus the electric ones were still smart ED2, these only where brought to Stuttgart after their first 2-4 years, but around the year 2016 they all where scraped. car2go, which are based on the ED3 and ED4, were all sold at some point and given into private hands. The blue Tridion cell was just wrap in almost all vehicles, the smart ED2 solar roof was only available in an early fleet of combustion engines in Hamburg.
The electric car2go fleet
Initially started with .. | City | Year | Amount |
.. ED2 | Ulm / Neu-Ulm | 03 / 2009 | 300 (mhd) / 25 (electric drive) |
.. ED2 | Amsterdam | 11 / 2011 | 300 (electric drive) |
.. ED2 | San Diego | 11 / 2011 | 300 (electric drive) |
.. ED3 | Stuttgart | 11 / 2012 | 500 (electric drive) |
.. ED3 | Portland | 03 / 2012 | 250 (benzin) / 30 (electric drive) |
.. ED3 | Berlin | 04 / 2012 | 1.200 (mhd) / 16 (electric drive) |
.. ED3 | Madrid | 11 / 2015 | 350 (electric drive) |
.. ED4 | Paris | 01 / 2019 | 400 |
Number of cars at the peak time of each fleet.