Used the Car2Go for the first time today. I drove to downtown, and parked at the Balboa Blink chargers (a white LEAF was already there sipping on electrons), and was greeted with several Car2Go's to choose from. I got the blue and white one.
I plugged in my car, makin sure that the charger actually worked (important with the Blink equipment). Then, I jumped in and sped off in the 20kW torque monster (with 10kW regen). I really liked the simple gauges on the dash; a round gauge with zero to 100% SOC, and another round gauge with battery usage for power or regen, from -10kW to +30kW (although it never went above 20kW).
Getting started was simple enough. Swipe the Car2Go card on the lower left outside of the windshield. After about 20 seconds, it unlocks the doors. Hint: don't unplug a charging car and then try to close the fuel door on the car until it is unlocked... it won't work. There should be a sticker on the inside of the car's fuel door to warn about this.
I walked around the car to check for damage. Then, got in and answered a few simple questions on the navigation screen after typing in my secret PIN. It uses a smily face or a frowning face for interior or exterior cleanliness. I took the key out of the dash, and put it in the key slot, located down by the gear shifter. It took a while to find this, and is not intuitive. Another not intuitive thing is the Blink card was in a slot right above the nav screen. Nothing identifies it's in there, as you only see the end of the card.
I plugged in my address of where I wanted to go, and we were off. The radio didn't work on this car, so I drove down to the main office on 9th Avenue to exchange the car and tell them about this problem. Two cars were waiting across the street on two Blink chargers. The car only had about 30% SOC, and you have to plug it in at 20% SOC, according to the rules, so I thought I'd drive it until I found another car along the street to swap out. Note to Car2Go: Make the navigation show you where the offices are, official parking spots, chargers, and where other cars are.
These cars are a whole different world compared to our LEAFs. It still popped away from a stop light quicker than any gas burners, but power going up the hills of downtown was marginal. The car feels really, really cheap. It's hard to believe that this car has anything to do with Germans. It's clunky over bumps. The fun parts are that it's like driving a go-cart in downtown, and you can park it anywhere you can squeeze it in.
The radio was blaring, and the windows were down, and it was fun puttering around. I went over to Harbor Island, and did some business there. I tried to perform a "stopover" so that nobody could snag my car while I was inside, but I'm not sure it worked. You have to lock the doors, and I didn't (learned that after the fact), so I probably got charged for each minute there.
I was getting close to 20% SOC, so I started looking for another car to swap. I pulled out the little map that shows where official Car2Go parking spots are. I didn't really need that, 'cuz the cars were everywhere. Then, I decided to take a chance that it would go below 20%, but that I would plug it in at Balboa Park.
When I got there, I tried to end the rental, but it had a communication error, and said to move the car to another spot. I hit the SOS button, and the phone rang (obviously, the communication error wasn't where I was parked). The lady answered, and I told her the problem. I ended up leaving the car unlocked and taking the keys and Blink car and leaving it with the folks at the Automotive Museum. She manually ended my rental, and subtracted 11 minutes from my time.
Note to Car2Go: Put a drop box at these hub locations for these situations.
Two guys were just taking off in their Car2Go. I asked them how often they've used it, and like me, it was there first time. They didn't quite get the Blink cord figured out, and left it on the ground.
All in all, I was impressed. It has early issues, but a lot of thought has gone into its implementation. I'll probably use the cars regularly when I visit downtown, and let the LEAF charge. I don't know how much it costs yet, though!!
