By Morgan M. Hurley | Editor

Part II of a series

Tucked away behind the pristine, cyan blue and white lobby of Downtown’s car2go headquarters in East Village, is a mash up of industry and future; creativity and environmental science; and the steady hum of busy employees.

This is where all the magic happens.

While its aesthetics have won both awards and the envy of others, car2go’s operations and administrative offices are rarely seen by the public or their customers; however, should a current or prospective customer enter the Ninth Street lobby and ring the bell, a member of the company’s fleet team will appear in seconds to assist.

“This space has had many lives,” said San Diego location manager Will Berry, referring to the area that houses the staff. “I know it had been retail for clothing; I know it’s been a print shop, and I know it had been a church. Those are just some of the lives it’s had.”

Today, the “bee hive,” as Berry refers to it, is a hip, industrial-meets-future workspace designed by Paul Basile Studios, car2go’s East Village neighbor. Berry is eager to show off the functionality he said Basile deserves all the credit for, much of which is visible to the eye was built or assembled by Basile himself.

“That gives a very unique feel to it,” Berry said. “Sometimes friends of mine will come in to visit and they’ll just talk about how jealous they are that this is the space that we’re in.”

Basile, who has won five Orchids and a Grand Orchid from the San Diego Architectural Foundation for the personal stamps he’s put on area restaurants and businesses, received one in 2012 for the interior design of car2go’s headquarters.

With a very open and functional design, including half-walls and objects on wheels for mobility purposes, the space offers plenty of opportunity for interaction and creativity between the fleet team, marketing, customer service, dispatch and management.

Several large-scale promotional photos of car2go’s first public launch in Ulm, Germany adorn the walls, as well as a stunning photo of an entire fleet inside a village square in Ulm, along with others from the company’s North American headquarters in Austin, Texas.

Basile’s “street” theme uses trench plates from street repairs, a sliding door made of recycled products, a 2,000 pound design table, and lots of old vintage rustic materials mixed with the new, giving the space lots of character and placing it in direct opposition of its pristine and clinical-style lobby.

Back in 2011, with a small fleet of eight electric vehicles, car2go had a small, double wide 600-square-foot charging bay. Berry said the space was not big enough to conduct maintenance while charging vehicles, so repairs were done on the street. It quickly became apparent that they needed more space.

“We realized we had cars that we needed to increase the average ‘state of charge’ across the fleet for, to be able to benefit our members so they could get where they needed to go and we could get the revenue,” Berry said. “So the trick was that we needed more private charging that we could directly control.”

Berry, who was then marketing manager, said he and his colleagues were working to find a solution when one presented itself; the building directly behind them that faced 10th Street. Once they got through the rusted metal door that stood between them, they found an empty open bay-style building. Though his colleagues could see the potential, Berry was a total skeptic.

“The space had two, three inches of dirt everywhere, windows that were boarded up entirely, pigeon poop all over the floor, and it’s a major investment. I felt we needed to refocus our efforts elsewhere,” he said. “I finally came around and it was humbling for me.”

Berry said once they got the funds to acquire the 3,500-square-foot space, scraped it, laid down the dirt and got a network of Blink electric vehicle charging stations inside, they found they could get 30 cars inside. Their new charging facility came online in January of 2013.

“This was a game changer for us,” Berry said.

Now, while actively in the process of swapping out 380 Gen2 units for 400 Gen3, they couldn’t live without it.

“Our perfect product is a car that is fully clean inside and out and fully charged – if I can deliver on that — that’s the essence of our brand,” Berry said. “With 38 charging stations and 400 cars, about 10 percent of our fleet is down at any time and back at the office getting some form of maintenance.”

Berry calls their fleet efforts an orchestra.

“There are so many different pieces that really need to come together at any one time,” he said. “With the GPS enablement of our vehicles we really have the heartbeat of the car, so that if we do have a vehicle out there that is at a low state of charge — by the way, if a car is 20 percent or below it is no longer available on the app — a member could not walk up and swipe into that car.

“We’ve decided that 20 percent is just too low – we would rather have that car sit until we send a fleet team member out to access it and bring it to the closest charging point.”

Sometimes the closest charging point is a public EV station nearby, sometimes it makes better sense to bring the unit back to headquarters so the fleet team can charge it and clean it.

Berry said feedback is steady and comes to the EV company in many ways, including their customer service line, walk-ins to their lobby, but the primary method is Twitter.

“Our members are very passionate about the service and they are also not afraid to tell us when we need to make an improvement,” he said.

Take your Car2Go to the ballgame

For the past two baseball seasons, Berry said they’ve run a special program — that not only benefits their members but also creates something they refer to as “Padres weekend series drop zones.” All a member has to do is pull up to the Ninth Avenue side just like a valet.

“We’ve made it so easy to get to the game,” Berry said. “Especially for season ticket holders who live in Uptown. There is no waiting for us; they pull up, end their rental and off they go.”

Part I of this series ran in April, [“Car2Go enhances its San Diego Fleet,” Vol. 16, Issue 4].

—Morgan M. Hurley can be reached at [email protected].