car2go Is First All Electric Car Sharing Program in North America

San Diego has just became the first North American city to have an all-electric car sharing program, thanks to the arrival of Daimler’s car2go. The program is going to start operations before the end of 2011 with 300 smart fortwo electric drive vehicles.

“We’re proud that car2go has chosen to launch the first North American all-electric carsharing service in San Diego,” said San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders. “car2go’s launch here further supports our efforts to make San Diego the nation’s electric vehicle capital.”

All vehicles in the fleet will come equipped with the latest car2go telematics technology, and s will be charged at Blink EV charging stations developed by California-based technology provider ECOtality.

The company is currently in the process 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 smart fortwo electric drive is powered by a 30 kW electric propulsion system. In San Diego, the high-efficiency lithium-ion batteries can be recharged at designated EV charging stations. On a single charge, the car can travel up to 84 miles. Battery recharging time from 20 percent to 80 percent of battery full capacity is just three and a half hours. Recharging a completely discharged battery takes no more than eight hours, which makes it possible to recharge overnight.

“Past experience shows that this is seldom necessary, as the daily stretch covered by car2go drivers in urban areas rarely exceeds 6 miles,” Daimler explains.

Further details of the service such as business area, parking and charging concept as well as start of customer registrations will be announced in the near future.