Avant2Go car sharing

When I first came across this car sharing service, I wasn’t really sure what to think of it. It was, and probably still is, something very unusual that you would share a car with who knows how many other people, when we’re all accustomed to have our own cars and use one single car whenever we feel like it. After reading a bit more about it on the website, I’ve realized that this sounds really great and I became very interested! That was a few years ago, but there were some drawbacks as to why I haven’t decided to register and start using the service back then, and also why I waited till now to do that.

For those of you that still don’t know what Avant2Go is, it is a car sharing service, where you only pay for a car, when you actually use it. Without having any other expenses due to registration, ensurance, gas or anything else connected to owning a car, all of that gets taken care of. All the cars used in the service are electric, so there is also an environmental bonus, as well as a financial one. Of course, when we’re talking about money and how much it costs to use Avant2Go, it depends on how often you decide to use the service or for how long etc., since there are also other alternatives for going around the city, especially during summers with bikes, electric scooters (which became very popular in the last few months) and things like that. There are also other means of public transportation, but here in Ljubljana we only have public buses and if I can, I try to avoid those as best as I can. Having my own car helps with that, but there were times when the car was getting serviced so I had to use the bus then.

Avant2Go offers their cars in four cities across Slovenia – Ljubljana, Maribor, Kranj and Murska Sobota, and at Jože Pučnik airport, for those that fly to and out of there. When you become a member of the service, you can then choose from 6 different models of electric cars. Those are BMW i3 (there are two versions of that car though), VW Golf, Renault Zoe, and three different versions of Smart cars. Although I have seen a few Nissan Leafs as well, but they are not as common as the rest of the cars. Different cars also mean different prices, of course.

Since I’ve mentioned prices, it’s probably a good thing to say why this was one of the reasons for me to finally decide to go through with this. Of course I can’t say for certain how much I spend on my car right now, because there are some expenses that you don’t really have to pay for every year, and also I can’t predict exactly how much I’m going to use Avant2Go, but for me the cost of driving around would drop down by almost 50%! If I only started using Avant2Go cars, compared to using my own car. I do drive around quite a lot, because of all the games and tournaments with volleyball, so when you look at it that way, saving almost half the amount of money I would normally spend for gas and everything else, sounds like a good bargain. And for those longer trips all around the country, I could easily just rent a car with the money that I would save while using the car sharing service. Besides that, every Avant2Go member gets special prices and discounts for renting a car, don’t know what exactly those are yet, but might update you on that in a future post, when I’m thinking of letting you know what the experience will be like when I get some more experience using the service. 🙂

Another reason why this became a really interesting thing for me is the fact that each and every time you decide to use an Avant2Go car, you can choose a different car. There’s actually no need for that, it’s completely possible to always pick the same kind of car, if you prefer that, but for me, driving a different car each time seems more fun! 🙂 I’ve checked out the cars that they offer and of course they all have automatic transmitions, which is going to be another first for me, since I’ve never actually driven an automatic, so learning to drive that can only be a good thing.

So, since I came up with the idea for this post and actually finish writing it, I already used the service a little bit, and all I can say is, that it’s AMAZING! As I’ve said before, always driving a different car is very interesting, it’s also very different from driving my own gasoline powered car, but all in all it’s really fun. These are just a few thoughts on my own experience with Avant2Go, and as I’ve said, once I’ve driven some more, I’ll make a special post on that and what it looks like to actually use the service. 🙂