We drove an electric car! A trip to my favorite plant nursery

Hey friends! A while ago in the car on our way back from my parents’ house, the boyfriend and I started talking about electronic cars and how far they’ve come in the past few years. Both being soon-to-be-scientists we really went deep into the topic, even did a quick calculation of fuel versus power costs for a 500km distance (That’s how far an electric car can get you with a full battery). I don’t want to bore you but the difference is huge! We discussed it for a while - he liked the technology and I liked the eco-friendliness - but we both thought that an electric car might really be an option for us in the future.
We didn’t think about that topic any more until only a few weeks later I was offered to try out the new Citroën Multicity Carsharing project: the first car sharing service in Berlin that uses only 100% electrical cars. And of course I said yes! It’s one thing to dream about maybe having an e-car in the future, but another to drive one right now.

So this post is about our little adventure with the e-car, but only driving around and then telling you guys what we thought about it wouldn’t be very creative, so we made this post also about my favorite local plant nursery, which is soooo pretty and one of my favorite places in Berlin.


Getting a customer card to be able to open the cars was easy peasy since there’s a customer center right next to where I work. The app told us where we could find the next car and we didn’t even have to walk far to get there. We needed a while to figure out how on earth we get the car to open with the customer card! But then we drove! There are a few things that are really different with e-cars. There’s no noise from the engine. You turn the key and you’re expecting the WROOOOM of the engine – but there’s nothing. No sound at all. It’s strange at first but you get used to it very quickly. I thought it feels a bit like you’re sitting in an oversized (remote-controlled) toy car. A nice side effect of the missing engine sound: you can actually listen to the radio and understand stuff, even on the autobahn!

We chose our favorite plant nursery as our destination, because we had planned to do some plant shopping for our home for a while and this seemed to be the best chance to not have to carry everything home.
We found the nursery just a few months ago and it’s been my favorite place in Berlin since then. The place is huge and filled with thousands of colorful pretty flowers and plants. I spend a whole day just walking through the green houses and taking in the colors and smells. If there’s anything I would call my happy place, that would be it.

I peeked through one of the flower shelves and found those cute parrots in a cage in the room behind them!
At the end of the day we were glad we had the car, because once I started picking out my favorite plants, it's hard to stop! I had quite a collection in the end. Too bad we forgot to buy this cute orange flower-succulent-plant-thing (first picture of the plant nursery) so I already have a reason to go there again!

If you're interested in our opinion, here are a few things that we thought about the Citroën Multicity Carsharing and about driving an electric car:

• The cars are everywhere in the inner city. No long walks if you need one. It’s really easy! If you're living not that central, like we do, you might have to take the S-Bahn or a bus to get there, so for us, the next car is not so much 'just around the corner', so less spontaneity here. I'm counting on a bigger operation area in the near future! Same thing for the problem of having to end the trip in the operating area.
• As it’s just “borrowed” for a while, you don’t have the responsibilities you’d have with your very own car like refueling/charging, insurances and stuff. You don’t even have to buy a parking ticket. Thumbs up for that.
• It’s so ecofriendly! The cars have no CO­₂ emission whatsoever! No bad feelings for turning our backs on public transport from time to time.
• You can take friends. The cars have room for four people at a time.

We had a lot of fun driving around the city. I would use the Citroën Multicity Carsharing service for spontaneous trips with friends, shopping at IKEA (Because you never leave empty handed, and carrying that stuff home… uuuh.) or plant shopping in our case, a sightseeing trip when friends are visiting, getting home from the movies at night. Sometimes having a car at hand can make things a lot easier.

If you would like to try it out, too (just really want to drive an electric car) you can click the link below and get

a free registration and 60 minutes travel credit!

(offer expires  30.05.2014)

Do you have experiences with e-cars? Even if you have never tried it I'd really like to hear your oppinion. Would you consider buying an electric car in the future? And what do you think about the different car sharing services in Berlin or where you live? Tell me what you think!