Car2Go, a car sharing enterprise similar to Zipcar, has announced that by the end of the year, its San Diego fleet will be all-electric, packed with 300 Smart Fortwo Electric Drives. For a refresher on how car sharing generally works, read our rundown of Zipcar here. It must be noted that Car2Go differs from Zipcar by offering “free-floating” car rentals, which means members can take a car anywhere they please and simply leave it there—no need to return the car to a specific location by a specific time. The company’s telematics tech lets members know which cars are available and where, and its automated rental process makes nabbing a nearby car a snap.
What isn’t clear at this time is how Car2Go plans to handle the task of recharging its fleet of “free-floating” electric Smarts. Typically, car sharing companies include a gas card in the glovebox for refueling the cars, but charging a car is a bit more time-consuming than filling up with dino juice—and did we mention the electric Smart has a sub-100-mile range? Car2Go plans to release the specific charging process soon, but for now it has revealed that regardless of who is tasked with charging the cars or how the cars make their way to charging stations, they will make use of Blink EV charging stations around the city of San Diego. Hopefully easing the charging situation, Blink plans to have around 1000 public charging stations operational by the end of 2011.
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