Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, abbreviated as BMW, is a German multinational manufacturer of luxury vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. The company was founded in 1916 as a manufacturer of aircraft engines, which it produced from 1917 to 1918 and again from 1933 to 1945.
Carsharing or car sharing or car clubs (UK) is a model of car rental where people rent cars for short periods of time, often by the hour. It differs from traditional car rental in that the owners of the cars are often private individuals themselves, and the carsharing facilitator is generally distinct from the car owner. Carsharing is part of a larger trend of shared mobility.
Sixt SE is an international mobility service provider with about 2,000 locations in more than 100 countries. Sixt SE acts as a parent and holding company of the Sixt Group, which is internationally active in the business areas of vehicle rental, car sharing, ride-hailing, and subscription.
Mercedes-Benz Mobility AG is the global financial and mobility services provider of the Mercedes-Benz Group. The company finances, leases and insures Daimler Group passenger cars and commercial vehicles, optimizes fleets of commercial customers and offers banking and credit/debit cards services in more than 40 countries.
The Smart EQ Fortwo, formerly Smart Fortwo electric drive, smart ed or Smart Fortwo EV, is a battery electric vehicle variant of the Smart Fortwo city car made by Smart.
An electric vehicle charging network is an infrastructure system of charging stations to recharge electric vehicles. Many government, car manufacturers, and charging infrastructure providers sought to create networks. Today, charging network vendors include either proprietary solutions, or hardware agnostic solutions. Hardware-agnostic vendors allow for customers to switch out their charge stations and/or switch to a different network vendors ; whereas proprietary vendors do not allow customers to switch.
The BMW i8 is a plug-in hybrid sports car developed by BMW. The i8 was part of BMW's electrified fleet and was marketed under the BMW i sub-brand. The production version of the BMW i8 was unveiled at the 2013 Frankfurt Motor Show and was released in Germany in June 2014. Deliveries to retail customers in the U.S. began in August 2014. A roadster variant was launched in May 2018. Production ended in June 2020.
Shared transport or shared mobility is a transportation system where travelers share a vehicle either simultaneously as a group or over time as personal rental, and in the process share the cost of the journey, thus creating a hybrid between private vehicle use and mass or public transport. It is a transportation strategy that allows users to access transportation services on an as-needed basis. Shared mobility is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of transportation modes including carsharing, Bicycle-sharing systems, ridesharing companies, carpools, and microtransit.
The BMW ActiveE was a demonstration electric car based on the BMW 1 Series small family cars. It was the second vehicle after the Mini E to be developed under BMW Group’s Project i. The electric drive system was the latest addition to BMW’s EfficientDynamics programme. The US Environmental Protection Agency official range is 151 kilometres (94 mi), with an energy consumption of 33 kW·h/100 miles, and the agency rated the ActiveE's combined fuel economy at 2.3L/100 km.
Share Now GmbH is a German carsharing company, formed from the merger of Car2Go and DriveNow. Since 2022, it is a subsidiary of the Free2Move division of multinational automaker Stellantis providing carsharing services in urban areas in Europe, and formerly in North America. It has over four million registered members and a fleet of over 14,000 vehicles in 18 cities across Europe.
GoCar is the first Carsharing service in Ireland. GoCar members can book cars online or via the app for as little as an hour, then unlock with their phone or GoCard; the keys are in the car, with fuel, insurance and city parking all included. Rates start from €8 per hour, with 50 km of driving included on each trip. GoCar now has over 10,000 members and operates a fleet of over 300 cars across 200+ locations in Ireland. Drivers can visit GoCar.ie to request a GoCar in their community. It launched in Cork in September 2008, with the support of Cork City Council as a pilot scheme. Cork City Council gave GoCar use of 3 car parking locations in Cork City as part of a wider pilot scheme.
The BMW i3 is an electric car that was manufactured by German marque BMW from 2013 to 2022. The i3 was BMW's first mass-produced zero emissions vehicle and was launched as part of BMW's electric vehicle BMW i sub-brand. It is a B-segment, high-roof hatchback with an electric powertrain. It uses rear-wheel drive via a single-speed transmission and an underfloor lithium-ion battery pack with an optional range-extending petrol engine.
The BMW i is a sub-brand of BMW founded in 2011 to design and manufacture plug-in electric vehicles. The company initially released two vehicles: the i3 all-electric car and the i8 plug-in hybrid. The all-electric iX3 SUV was released in late 2020, while iX SUV and the i4 all-electric liftback sedan followed later in 2021.
The adoption of plug-in electric vehicles in Germany is actively supported by the German Federal Government. Under its National Platform for Electric Mobility, Chancellor Angela Merkel set an initial goal in 2010 to deploy one million electric vehicles on German roads by 2020, which was achieved with a six months delay in July 2021. Initially, the government did not provide subsidies to promote sales of plug-in electric vehicles, however, by the end of 2014 it was recognized that the country was well behind the set sales targets. A purchase bonus scheme was approved in 2016, but premium cars were not eligible to the incentive. In order to meet the climate targets for the transport sector, in 2016 the government set the goal to have from 7 to 10 million plug-in electric cars on the road by 2030, and 1 million charging points deployed by 2030.
ReachNow was a carsharing service operated by BMW Group in Seattle, Portland, and Brooklyn. It launched in 2016 and it shut down its services in Seattle and Portland on July 17, 2019. It used a mobile app for car reservations and operated a fleet of over 1,000 vehicles. It was one of three car-sharing services in the city of Seattle, competing with car2go and Zipcar. ReachNow was similar to another BMW Group service DriveNow, but was focused on North American cities starting with Seattle. Unlike DriveNow which is a joint-venture with Sixt, ReachNow is a fully owned BMW subsidiary, with RideCell rather than Sixt, providing the technology platform.
Yandex.Drive is a Russian carsharing service owned by Yandex. The service in Moscow, Moscow Oblast, Saint-Petersburg, Kazan and Sochi.The cothlaunched in February 2018. The vehicle park consists of Kia Rio, Kia Rio X-Line, Renault Kaptur, Skoda Octavia, Skoda Rapid, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Qashqai, Audi A3, Audi Q3, Porsche Macan, Porsche 911 Carrera, Ford Mustang of 1965 and 1969, BMW 5 Series, Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Volkswagen Polo, Genesis G70, Citroen Jumpy and Volkswagen Transporter of January 2020 its vehicle fleet is over 21000 cars. According to the Financial Times, Yandex.Drive is the largest carsharing company in the world.
One-way carsharing is a type of carsharing that enables users to begin and end their trip at different locations. The pick-up and drop-off locations can be either restricted to traditional rental stations, or can be anywhere within an operational area in what is called free-floating carsharing.
FREENOW is a mobility service provider headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. FREENOW was formed in February 2019 from a joint venture between BMW and Daimler Mobility. Thomas Zimmermann is CEO of the FREENOW Group.
Carsharing in Moscow is a rapidly developing type of public transport in the city. As of January 2020 Moscow has the largest fleet of carsharing vehicles in the world which counts more than 30,000 cars ahead of such megacities as Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai. In Moscow, more than 150,000 trips are made by carsharing cars every day. The largest carsharing operator in Moscow is Delimobil which has a fleet of 17,000 cars.
