Car2go brings North America’s first all-electric carsharing program to San Diego

Jul 14th 2011
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Car2go brings North Americas first all-electric carsharing program to San Diego

Once we tried out car2go’s carsharing program earlier this year, we knew it was just a matter of time before the service rolled out to other parts of the rustic. Little did we all know, however, that it’d be doing so atop a flotilla of EVs. Yesterday, the Daimler subsidiary announced that San Diego often is the next city to adopt car2go, making it the primary in North America to boast a totally electric carsharing system. This system will kick off sometime before the top of this year, when 300 Smart Fortwo plug-ins storm town, each powered by a 30 kW electric propulsion system and a lithium ion battery that promises to last for as much as 84 miles on a single charge. Whenever the cars run out of juice, drivers would be ready to recharge at any of the 1,000 Blink EV charging stations (as a result of be installed by the top of 2011), before fending off to windsail, buy white linen pants, or whatever people do under perennial sunshine. Curiosity piqued? Steer past the break for the entire press release.

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car2go Announces First All-Electric Carsharing Fleet in North America

San Diego/USA, July, 13, 2011

car2go to introduce first North American all-electric carsharing program
in San Diego

300 zero-emission smart fortwo electric drive vehicles arrive in San Diego by the tip of 2011

car2go N. A. LLC, a subsidiary of Daimler North America Corporation, announced that San Diego often is the first North American city to have a 100-percent electric vehicle (EV) carsharing program. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, Nicholas Cole, President and CEO of car2go N. A. LLC, and Jonathan Read, CEO of ECOtality, made the official announcement at a news conference on the El Cortez this morning.

The all-electric car2go program in San Diego goes to begin operations before the top of 2011 with 300 smart fortwo electric drive vehicles.

All smart fortwo electric drive cars should be equipped with the most recent car2go telematics technology, allowing fully automated, easy and convenient rental operations. Because the world’s first free-floating carsharing service, car2go provides its members with the chance to hire the cars spontaneously while not having the weight to decide to a particular return time or location.

The car2go program is already very successful in four cities with a complete of greater than 40,000 members and 1,000 smart fortwo vehicles with low-emission gas engines.

The smart fortwo electric drive is powered by a 30 kW electric propulsion system. This is economical, quiet and emissions-free. In San Diego, the high-efficiency lithium-ion batteries could be recharged at designated EV charging stations. On a single charge, the automobile can travel as much as 84 miles. Battery recharging time from 20 percent to 80 percent of battery full capacity is solely three and a half hours. Recharging a totally discharged battery takes not more than eight hours, which makes it possible to recharge overnight. Past experience shows that it is seldom necessary, because the daily stretch covered by car2go drivers in urban areas rarely exceeds 6 miles.

The electrical car2go vehicles can be charged at Blink EV charging stations developed by California-based technology provider ECOtality. The corporate is currently within the strategy of siting and installing the charging stations, and approximately 1,000 Blink commercial charging stations are expected to be installed by end of 2011 for public use in San Diego.
The electrical car2go service in San Diego may be operated by car2go N. A. LLC. Further details of the service comparable to business area, parking and charging concept in addition to start of purchaser registrations may be announced within the near future.

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