Via Jaunted today an article about a new car rental service called car2go that will be rolled out first in Austin, TX. Like Zipcar the service will deploy cars on the street available for rental whenever you want. From the sounds of it you have to sign up first to be a member of the service since a membership card is required to unlock the car. But the cost is pretty reasonable - 25 cents a minute. And most cool - the cars that will be available are Smart Fortwos. I love these things. I want to have one to drive around the house. The distance between the fridge and the TV in the family room means that I can't get a ham sandwich in the space of a typical commercial, but with the Fortwo and a little Tokyo drifting I may just be able to achieve my dream.
Seriously I'd love to have access to this service. For instance, we're going to San Diego this July and we're not planning to get a rental car because we're staying down in the Gaslamp Quarter and really wouldn't need it. But if we had something like this service available we could pop up the coast for dinner at a favorite restaurant one night, without going through all the hassle of getting taxis and such. Mary has reminded me that on a dollars and cents basis the service is only a good deal if one is talking about renting one of the cars for a very limited time but I think she's missing the essential issue here. It's a Smartcar and they're cool!
