Car2Go electric cars in San Diego

If you are a member of Car2Go, you likely know that you can use your membership in other US cities, but not in Canada or Europe, EXCEPT that recently they expanded usage privileges to cities in Canada, and I guess there is the possibility that it will be extended to European cities as well.

One thing to watch out for is the "home zone."

I didn't check to see if where I was going in San Diego was part of the Home Zone--my fault, I presumed, relying more on how most all of DC is "home zone" for Car2Go, not realizing only about half of San Diego is similarly enabled.

BUT, I drove an electric SmartCar in the process.

Image from "Electric car sharing comes to the US" from Motor Nature.

I didn't consider until later in the day when I "processed" my experience afterwards, that the car drove BEAUTIFULLY, unlike the herky-jerky experience you get driving the gasoline powered cars using a different transmission.

I didn't pick up the car from a charging station and I didn't drop it off at one, so I didn't get a chance to learn about that element of the system.

For obvious reasons, electric cars work better in warmer climates, but range is still degraded in high temperatures ("AAA: Range of electric cars cut in cold, hot weather," USA Today).

-----
Note that Car2Go is great when it works, and a pain "when it doesn't." You see this in the comments on yelp (mostly I don't consider yelp comments definitive but a useful source of information nonetheless).

Partly it's because they don't have enough call center help. (And the wireless connections in each car vary in strength sometimes and don't work so well in areas with weaker mobile telephony coverage. This is a problem on our block...) And individual city offices, not the call center, make decisions about credits, etc.

But my problem, not being able "to find a place to park" was due to my not checking well enough before, what the home zone area is in San Diego. Once I looked at the map and it happened that the freeway I drove on was the border, then I understood my problem with Car2Go was really my problem.

Few negative commenters on yelp take responsibility for when their mistake is the cause of the problem.