The Car2Go concept is pretty slick. You pay an annual membership fee, and after that, you are charged by the minute for the time that you have the car checked out. The check out is easy--you can look online to see what car is closest to you and not checked out, and either reserve it or just proceed there and swipe your membership card at the reader located in the front windshield. The doors unlock, and you drive away. Gas is covered by the company. When you stop the car, you can tell it that you are merely making a stop, and don't want anyone else to take the car while you get out and do your errand, or you can tell the car you're all done and the car is available for others to take. No special place to leave the car, just in an unrestricted parking area somewhere within the generous borders of the Car2Go service area. Sweet!
So, driving the Smart car is sort of like driving a more comfortable Lawn Boy. Kinda noisy and spartan, though there is air conditioning. The transmission is either manual or automatic, and you can choose on the fly to either let it shift for you or do it yourself. My teenage son and I put it through various tests, such as: can the Smart car be parked facing in to the curb rather than parallel parked (answer--it sticks out further than our SUV did from the curb, so probably not), how does it do on an incredibly steep hill (answer--pretty darn well) and how many can you fit in a standard sized parking lot space (at least two!). A totally fun afternoon.
I think the Car2Go concept really works for folks like us that could get away with 1 car most of the time. The husband works from home and just occasionally needs a car. I split time working from home or the office, so we can share trips. Now that we're getting closer to having a teenage driver, however, we will most likely hang on to the 2nd car for a while longer.
