Can't Afford A Car? Get Smart With Car2go

Unless you've stumbled upon Car Throttle accidentally, you're probably here because you love cars.

And who can blame you? The beauty, the speed, the freedom, the unfathomably huge running costs... hang on, what was that last one again?

Ah yes, the main downside to running your own car: Cost. You have to buy the thing in the first place, which can be buttock-clenching even for a used car. Then you need to continually fill it up with an expensive flammable liquid. And insure it. And tax it. And have it MoT'd each year. And serviced. For most of us, the running costs alone click into the thousands every year. Which sucks.

If you live in London, you can chuck another ten quid a day onto the bonfire. Congestion charging, which does nothing at all to help prevent congestion and can cost the average London dweller another few grand a year, if they venture into central London regularly.

Help me, I'm skint!

Some of you reading this right now might be the world's biggest petrolheads, but simply don't have the coin to afford your own.

Thanks to Mercedes-Benz, a new service called car2go is offering an alternative: car sharing. You pay a fee, you use a car whenever you need it.

"Ah, hang on," you say, "hasn't that been around for yonks? It's called renting, you muppet."

Well, you're only partly right, smart-ass - car sharing doesn't tie you to a whole day's driving. In fact, it only ties you into a minute's driving, if that's all you need the car for.

For the princely sum of 35 fine English pennies per minute, you can have yourself a Smart ForTwo to knock around London in.

Yeah, we know, the dinky ForTwo isn't to all tastes, but at least you get sat-nav, air conditioning and a revvy little engine into the bargain. It'll also keep you dry, which you can't say about the Renault Twizy. Anyway, if you really don't like it, you just leave it for the next person to drive away in. Job jobbed.

So how does it work?

First you find a car. You'll need an Apple or Android device, and the free car2go app. It'll show you where the nearest car is. You can either reserve it or simply go find it. Swiping your membership card opens it, and entering a PIN on the vehicle's touchscreen frees the key, ready for you to use.

Yearly membership is £29.90, or free if you sign up before the end of 2012. Even £30 is no more than you'll spend on a day's rental from most companies.

Then you can biff about, safe in the knowledge you're only farting 98 grams of carbon dioxide into London's air every kilometer, and that all the painful costs of driving - fuel, insurance, even parking - are wrapped up in your 35p. Or £14.90 per hour, or £59 per day at discounted rates.

It isn't perfect, of course. Firstly, if you use it regularly you'll still end up spending more than you would using the bus or tube, and it's possibly not quite as convenient as just hopping in a taxi. And if you wedge yourself in traffic, those 35p-minutes will quickly add up.

But let's think about this for a second: It lets you drive a car around London pretty much whenever you want.

If you can't afford your own car (which, when it isn't being driven, is just an expensive bit of street furniture), this could be your best way of getting mobile.

If you're a cash-strapped Car Throttle reader living in Landon taaahn, and you decide to give car2go a try, let us know how you get on.