http://stattauto-muenchen.de/english.shtml
User Gen is a member and it's great. You can take cars far away -- hubby took a stationwagon skiing (roof rack included) for a week to Chamonix in 2002. We use STATTAUTO when we move, when friends move, when we go to Ikea, when friends go to Ikea, when we drive to visit Grandpa in Landshut and don't want to take the train, hubby's even driven me to work when it was too icy for me to ride my bike -- and it was cheaper than the bus pass there and back. There are more than 40 stations in Munich -- we've lived in 3 different locations, Schwabing, Untergiesing, and Schlachthofviertel, and have never been more than 10 minutes walking from our nearest station. You never have to find a parking space or pay for it! 24 hour access! No maintenance! Anytime you want to drive you call up the Zentrale, say when you want what kind of car, they say where to get it, you walk over and drive away! Well there's a little more to it than that, all the keys for each station are kept in an electronic safe at that station which you open with a keycard, the key for your reserved car lights up and you take it, when you get in the car you have to hold the key up to a little registering thing before you drive off -- and you have to check the car for damage like you do when renting a car. Gas is included in the price -- you may have to fill up if you're driving quite a way but you use the car's own gas card to pay at any Shell station.
If anyone wants even more details, search the forum for stattauto, I've posted several times with more and more detail. If you join and mention participant 2923, we get a 15 Euro bonus for having recruited someone! They're also affiliated with the Deutsche Bahn and with car sharing organizations in other cities, which means you too can car share in other cities (and Switzerland!). Really a great deal. Don't buy a car.
You can pick up at a moment's notice, 24 hours a day. You don't have to deal with any people, just call the hotline or book online, go to the parking lot to get the key from the safe, and drive away.
There can be problems with the chosen model: if you call Saturday morning when the weather's good and want to borrow the convertible Smart for a day trip, you'll most likely not get it. Or you may have to go to the other end of town to get that particular car. But you can book by phone or online, and in booking online you see a chart of which cars are available when and you can just choose. We've never not gotten a car at all. Sometimes you'll have to take a stationwagon instead of a Polo, but that doesn't bother us, and the price difference is minimal. The stations are spread out enough that it's not been a problem for us to get to different stations either. You can always ask "what cars are available at my closest station" or "what's the closest station that has this particular car".
One of the best advantages of STATTAUTO over rental is that you can do STATTAUTO an hour at a time -- if you only need the car for an hour (to drive your honey to work, for example) then you only take it for that hour. We take a stationwagon to do our biweekly shopping at Metro, that only takes two hours. And they do have special conditions available with Hertz if you want a car that STATTAUTO themselves don't have.
There are additional advantages to STATTAUTO if you have a MVV subscription -- the deposit is halved (normally 500 Euros) and the joining fee is also halved (normally 50 Euros).
Unfortunately, STATTAUTO's information is not available in English online, but they do speak English there -- maybe not very well, but I've just phoned them and they've got lots of members who're English native speakers. Just last month they wrote up a sheet of all the most important terms in English, so it should be no problem if you do have to resort to English with them. They would even make a special info-appointment for you if you don't think you'd understand everything discussed at the regular Wednesday info-evenings (attendance required before you can sign up).
Here is a list of all the types of Stattauto's Munich cars
Here is a list of all STATTAUTO Munich city stations (there are actually 60) with a little map
People can join as a group too, and each person would just pay their own portion of the 500 Euro deposit and the one-time membership fee of 50 Euros.
The website has comparisons of the costs involved with car ownership (insurance, gas, parking space, maintenance) and the costs of STATTAUTO with various scenarios -- someone who drives only within the city and only twice a week or so.
I didn't intend to translate the website here, but darn it, it looks like I have.
Better link for Stattauto: Der Preisrechner
Just put in what Tarifklasse (price class) you want, what times, how far you'll drive, etc., and it spits out how much it'll cost.
Prices haven't been raised for about 3 years! Gas / petrol / Benzin is INCLUDED in every trip!)... so is auto insurance!
See also: