car2go

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car2go Group GmbH

logo
legal form Company with limited liability
Seat Leinfelden-Echterdingen , Germany
management
  • Olivier Reppert
  • Stefan Glebke
Branch free-floating car sharing
Website www.car2go.com

car2go ( English car "car" and to go "take away") was a car sharing provider for the German car manufacturer Daimler . Most recently, the service was offered in 25 urban areas in nine countries and had around 15,000 vehicles. More than 3.6 million users were registered worldwide in 2018.

Mercedes-Benz GLA from car2go in Berlin

In mid-February 2019, car2go joined the Share Now brand together with DriveNow . This is part of the moovel Group GmbH , a joint venture of the companies BMW and Daimler .

Corporate structure

From its foundation in 2009 to the merger in February 2019, car2go was owned by Daimler AG. Car2go GmbH was based in Leinfelden-Echterdingen. Car2go Europe GmbH was based in Stuttgart. The individual national companies in Europe were bundled under this company. In Germany there was car2go Deutschland GmbH, which, like car2go Europe GmbH and car2go Group GmbH, was located in Leinfelden-Echterdingen. At the turn of the year 2012/2013, car2go GmbH was renamed Daimler Mobility Services GmbH, in which Daimler's various mobility services were brought together under one roof. Other regional companies were car2go Austria GmbH in Austria , car2go NA LLC in the USA with headquarters in Austin, Texas and car2go Canada Ltd in Canada .

Mobility concept

Key holder in a Car2Go-Smart. The ignition key is inserted between the inserts in this holder. There's a fuel card underneath.

In contrast to some other car sharing programs, such as Cambio CarSharing or Stadtmobil , with car2go the vehicles were not positioned at fixed rental stations, but were freely distributed across the business area. Customers were the nearest vehicle through its own car2go smart phone - app or via telephone hotline locate and spontaneously rent. At the start of the rental, users did not have to commit themselves to a return time or a return location, but instead were able to park the vehicle in a parking lot in the city after use.

The parking regulations differed from city to city. In Austin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Cologne and Berlin, for example, car2go vehicles were allowed to be parked free of charge in any municipal parking lot, while car2go drivers in Ulm could only end their rental in free public parking spaces or, with the help of a parking card, free access to inner-city parking spaces Had parking garages.

Since car2go is an inner-city mobility concept for short-term rentals, billing is done every minute and includes kilometers driven, insurance, fuel and parking fees. Customers paid a one-time registration fee, but otherwise no deposit or monthly or annual membership fees.

The fleet consisted of two-seater, electric or combustion engine-powered microcars from the smart fortwo brand , smart forfour 453 from the company's own car production range, as well as five-seater Mercedes-Benz A-Class, CLA-Class, B-Class and GLA-Class cars .

Only the data about the start and end points of the trip and the associated times were saved, but this also included stopovers for parking. The GPS data was stored for ten years.

Locations

The data in the following table refer to January 2019 at the latest.

city country vehicles area Customers Pop. begin The End
Ulm GermanyGermany Germany 000000000000300.0000000000300 20,000 124 T  March 2009  Dec. 2014
Austin (Texas) United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000320.0000000000320 77 km² 64,000 947 T  May 2010  Oct. 2019
Hamburg GermanyGermany Germany 000000000000900.0000000000900 102 km² 134,000. 1.8 million  Apr. 2011
Vancouver CanadaCanada Canada 000000000001200.00000000001,200 116 km² 119,000 631 T  June 2011  Feb 2020
Amsterdam NetherlandsNetherlands Netherlands 000000000000350.0000000000350 59 km² 40,000 851 T  Nov 2011
San Diego United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000300.0000000000300 59 km² 12,500 1.4 million  Nov 2011  Dec 2016
Vienna AustriaAustria Austria 000000000000800.0000000000800 97 km² 113,000 1.88 million  Dec 2011
Rhineland ( Düsseldorf and Cologne ) GermanyGermany Germany 000000000000650.0000000000650 120 km² 83,000 1.7 million  Jan. 2012
Lyon FranceFrance France 000000000000200.0000000000200 513 T  Feb. 2012  June 2012
Washington, DC United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000600.0000000000600 219 km² 59,000 672 T  March 2012  Feb 2020
Portland, Oregon United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000420.0000000000420 110 km² 46,000 639 T  March 2012  Oct. 2019
Berlin GermanyGermany Germany 000000000001200.00000000001,200 160 km² 219,000 3.61 million  Apr. 2012
Toronto CanadaCanada Canada 000000000000430.0000000000430 102 km² 52,000 2.62 million  June 2012  June 2018
Calgary CanadaCanada Canada 000000000000600.0000000000600 85 km² 104,000 1.24 million  July 2012  Oct. 2019
Miami United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000300.0000000000300 16,000 409 T  July 2012  Feb 2016
Stuttgart GermanyGermany Germany 000000000000500.0000000000500 101 km² 105,000 633 T  Nov. 2012
Seattle United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000720.0000000000720 211 km² 85,000 704 T  Dec 2012  Feb 2020
London United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom 000000000000500.0000000000500 8.17 million  Dec 2012  May 2014
Denver United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000330.0000000000330 102 km² 40,000 693 T  June 2013  Oct. 2019
Munich GermanyGermany Germany 000000000000500.0000000000500 89 km² 1.46 million  June 2013
Birmingham United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom 000000000000250.0000000000250 6,000 1.1 million  May 2013  May 2014
Milan ItalyItaly Italy 000000000000940.0000000000940 114 km² 119,000 1.35 million  Aug 2013
Twin Cities (Minneapolis & St. Paul) United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000550.0000000000550 288 km² 2.85 million  Sep 2013  Dec 2016
Columbus (Ohio) United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000200.0000000000200 59 km² 810 T  Oct. 2013  July 2018
Montreal CanadaCanada Canada 000000000000480.0000000000480 104 km² 44,000 1.7 million  Nov 2013  Feb 2020
Rome ItalyItaly Italy 000000000000665.0000000000665 78 km² 125,000 2.87 million  March 2014
Florence ItalyItaly Italy 000000000000250.0000000000250 55 km² 382 T  June 2014  Feb 2020
Los Angeles ( South Bay ) United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000150.0000000000150 70 km²  June 2014  June 2015
Frankfurt am Main GermanyGermany Germany 000000000000250.0000000000250 62 km² 747 T  Sep 2014
Copenhagen DenmarkDenmark Denmark 000000000000200.0000000000200 50 km² 570 T  Sep 2014  Feb 2016
Eugene (Oregon) United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000050.000000000050 16 km² 156 T  Oct. 2014  Feb. 2015
New York City ( Brooklyn ) United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000570.0000000000570 116 km² 51,000 2.50 million  Oct. 2014  Feb 2020
Stockholm SwedenSweden Sweden 000000000000100.0000000000100 25 km² 0.9 million  Dec. 2014  Nov 2016
Turin ItalyItaly Italy 000000000000450.0000000000450 53 km² 887 T  Apr. 2015
Madrid SpainSpain Spain 000000000000850.0000000000850 53 km² 190,000 3.18 million  Nov 2015
Chongqing China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China People's Republic of China 000000000000600.0000000000600 97 km² 234,000 6.6 million  Apr. 2016  May 2019
Chicago United StatesUnited States United States 000000000000400.0000000000400 75 km² 2.72 million  July 2018  Dec 2019
Paris FranceFrance France 000000000000400.0000000000400 77 km² 2.19 million  Jan. 2019
  1. a b c as of January 2019, unless the location was previously closed
  2. a b c d e f g h i j k l m location part of Share Now since 2019
  3. a b c d Location with exclusively electric vehicles

development

Pilot projects

car2go started a first pilot project in October 2008 in Ulm , Baden-Württemberg , followed by a second pilot project in November 2009 in the Texas capital Austin . From August 2010 to March 2011, car2go carried out a test with selected user groups in Vancouver, Canada .

As a test, 50 Smart Fortwo were made available to Daimler employees in Ulm from October 24, 2008  . From March 2009 a fleet of 200 Smart Fortwo vehicles was open to the public in Ulm and the neighboring Bavarian town of Neu-Ulm . In March 2011, the previously 200 vehicles in Ulm and Austin were replaced by 300 vehicles each from the newly developed smart “car2go edition” with a solar roof. For reasons of profitability, the offer was discontinued on December 31, 2014.

Germany

A class at Car2Go Rhineland
car2go electric cars in Berlin .
car2go vehicle in Stuttgart .

In the spring of 2011, car2go started with a fleet of 300 vehicles in Hamburg, which has been increased to 900 vehicles over time. In 2015, around 240 Mercedes-Benz vehicles were added.

In Berlin, car2go started on April 26, 2012 with initially 1,000 vehicles. As of October 2012, the vehicle fleet was increased by 200 vehicles. The more than 25,000 registered customers use the vehicles over 20,000 times a week (as of November 2012). At times, 16 station-bound electric Smarts were offered for rent at Potsdamer Platz.

Since June 27, 2016, 300 Mercedes-Benz vehicles from the A-Class, B-Class, GLA and CLA series have been available in Berlin. This was initially intended as a pilot test. By the end of 2016, Mercedes-Benz vehicles were also integrated into the Frankfurt, Rhineland and Munich locations. As part of a further pilot project, car2go has been offering the CLA series in a 280 kW (381 PS) AMG variant in Hamburg and Munich since November 2017 .

Electrically powered car2go B-Class in Stuttgart.

Since December 18, 2013, the Stuttgart car2go business area has been expanded to include the cities of Böblingen , Sindelfingen , Esslingen am Neckar and Gerlingen . At the same time, the Stuttgart fleet was increased from 450 smart fortwo electric drives to 500 units. A total of 50 additional charging stations were set up in the additionally developed cities. In March 2017, 50 electrically powered B-Classes from Mercedes-Benz were added and in November 2017 the business area was reduced and a "drop-off fee" was introduced for certain areas.

Since car2go is used particularly in densely populated urban districts, the operator downsized some business areas in the peripheral areas.

On April 1, 2014, car2go reduced the respective business area in the cities of Berlin, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Ulm for the first time to include individual districts. The reason given was that more cars should be available in the central city districts. On December 31, 2014, the car2go Ulm / Neu-Ulm location was closed for reasons of profitability.
The company implemented a further downsizing of the business areas to include districts outside the inner cities in Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Düsseldorf and Munich on August 17, 2015. This development was not without controversy, since with the downsizing of the business areas such sub-areas on the outskirts were excluded from the offer, in which the alternatives to the private car were lower. From the operator's point of view, however, such a reduction made sense, since car sharing was used much less frequently in these peripheral areas and the vehicles there had to be regularly relocated to the more popular inner city areas.

North America

The pilot project in Austin, operated with 200 vehicles, was made accessible to the entire population in May 2010 after successful tests. In December 2012 car2go started with 330 smart fortwo in Seattle.

In June 2011, car2go started in Vancouver with 225 vehicles.

In autumn 2011, San Diego and Amsterdam followed with a fleet of 300 smart electric drives each. In March 2016, car2go announced that it would replace the fleet of 400 electric vehicles in San Diego with gasoline-powered vehicles in May of that year. This step is justified with the slow expansion of the planned network with charging stations. In addition, the minute price for the loan should be reduced to below 50%.

On June 8, 2013, car2go Denver opened its seventh branch in the United States with 300 vehicles.

Europe

On December 5, 2011, car2go started operations in Vienna .

On February 1, 2012, Lyon followed with 200 vehicles. After a lost trademark dispute with the French car rental company CarGo , car2go had to cease operations in June 2012.

From December 4, 2012, car2go in London was available for the first time in the UK with 500 smart cars .

In May 2013 car2go started in the second largest city in the UK , Birmingham .

In August 2013, car2go Milan opened its first branch in Italy with 150 vehicles (450 vehicles from mid-September).

In May 2014, car2go withdrew from the London and Birmingham locations and thus completely from the United Kingdom. The same procedure applied to Los Angeles in June 2015 and Miami in the course of 2016.

fusion

In January 2018 it became known that Daimler and BMW wanted to merge their car sharing companies. For this purpose, Daimler bought all of Europcar's shares (25%). In November 2018, the EU approved the joint application by BMW and Daimler for a joint venture , subject to conditions, and the US competition authority followed suit in December 2018. In addition to the two car sharing offers car2go and DriveNow, a number of other offers have been bundled in the company Share Now , for example the taxi and mobility apps Mytaxi and Moovel from Daimler, as well as the parking and electric car charging services from BMW.

Initially, available vehicles from both car sharing brands were displayed in the car2go app, followed by a joint Share Now app in November 2019. In the course of 2019, the vehicles were initially given both brand names (car2go and Share Now) and after a transition period they will only be on the road with the new brand name.

Since January 14, 2020, Share Now has exclusively been offering the services that were previously marketed separately.

Web links

Commons : Car2Go  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d 2017 financial year: car2go is growing significantly and expanding its market leadership. (pdf) Press release Daimler, January 11, 2018, accessed on January 25, 2018 .
  2. a b Car manufacturers join forces: Car sharing merger between BMW and Daimler is perfect. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung . December 19, 2018, accessed December 19, 2018 .
  3. ^ Press release with information on the company structure. Retrieved January 16, 2017 .
  4. car2go and Europcar expand partnership across Europe . Daimler press release, October 20, 2011.
  5. car2go press release with information on company structure. Retrieved January 16, 2017 .
  6. Factsheet car2go 01/2017. Retrieved January 16, 2017 .
  7. Car2go is getting more expensive. Augsburger Allgemeine, November 27, 2013, accessed on November 27, 2013 .
  8. a b c d e f g Factsheet car2go_October 2018_EN. Retrieved November 3, 2018 .
  9. a b c d e f Fact Sheet car2go. (PDF) car2go, May 1, 2017, accessed June 3, 2017 .
  10. a b c d e f g car2go factsheet NA January 2017. Accessed on January 16, 2017 (English).
  11. Press release car2go October 2016. Accessed on January 16, 2017 .
  12. a b c d e f g h i j k l car2go Factsheet 2018/01. Retrieved January 26, 2018 .
  13. car2go factsheet NA 2017/01. January 2017, accessed on January 16, 2017 .
  14. ^ Ruben Priest: Dit heeft vijf jaar car2go brought to Amsterdam. November 28, 2016, accessed January 17, 2017 (Dutch).
  15. ^ Car2go Celebrates One Year in San Diego. Auto Rental News, December 4, 2012, accessed October 18, 2013 .
  16. STANDARD Verlagsgesellschaft mbH: Car2Go is also rolling out larger models in Vienna . In: derStandard.at . ( derstandard.at [accessed on October 21, 2016]).
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  18. car2go NA Factsheet Jan / 2017. Retrieved January 16, 2017 .
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  20. red / AP: Car2go in Toronto: out for the Daimler rental car. May 24, 2018, accessed June 1, 2013 .
  21. ^ Hannah Sentenac: Car2go Recruited 16,000 Miamians in the Past Year. Miami New Times Blogs, July 26, 2013, accessed October 18, 2013 .
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  25. Press release Stuttgart 05/10/2016. Retrieved January 16, 2017 .
  26. Birmingham's Car2Go share scheme attracts 6,000 members. BBC , October 8, 2013, accessed October 18, 2013 .
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  30. The car sharing pioneer conquers New York City: car2go starts in Brooklyn | marsMediaSite. Retrieved September 27, 2017 (German).
  31. Washington Post Car2Go expands to Brooklyn (September 25, 2014)
  32. car2go goes Madrid http://auto-presse.de/autonews.php?newsid=317071
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  34. Allez les bleus! car2go is coming to Paris . In: blog.car2go.com . 
  35. Tom Grünweg: Daimler pilot test car2go: Rent cars every minute. Der Spiegel , October 21, 2008, accessed October 18, 2013 .
  36. Sebastian Blanco: car2go, car sharing in the smart fortwo, comes to Austin, Texas this fall. Green Autoblog, March 26, 2009, accessed October 18, 2013 .
  37. ^ Sebastian Blanco: Car2go, the Fortwo car-sharing service, moves into Vancouver, BC for tests. August 20, 2010, accessed October 18, 2013 .
  38. Daimler's car2go: Rent a Smart anywhere, anytime. In: autoblog.com. October 21, 2008, accessed December 16, 2015 .
  39. Auto Bild From Ulm all over the world (March 26, 2009)
  40. Schwäbische Zeitung car2go is now also rolling to Neu-Ulm (August 20, 2009)
  41. car IT 300 Smarts are now driving for car2go in Ulm (March 11, 2011)
  42. a b Car2go closes in Ulm - the pilot city was too small and too expensive. In: Südwest Presse , October 30, 2014.
  43. Daimler https://www.car2go.com/media/data/germany/microsite-press/files/neue-car2go-flotte-in-hamburg.pdf
  44. TrendJam magazine car2go Smarts of the new generation in Hamburg (August 21, 2015)
  45. Press release car2go in Hamburg 2016. Accessed on January 16, 2017 .
  46. car2go Berlin is expanding its fleet and business area! - Mercedes-Benz Passion Blog / Mercedes Benz, smart, Maybach, AMG . In: Mercedes-Benz Passion Blog / Mercedes Benz, smart, Maybach, AMG . October 15, 2012 ( mercedes-benz-passion.com [accessed January 25, 2018]).
  47. Daimler has grown rapidly: 25,000 car2go customers in Berlin , November 2, 2012
  48. Der Tagesspiegel E-cars are hard to come by in Berlin (August 26, 2012)
  49. car2go website: Mercedes-Benz vehicles from car2go available from Monday in Berlin (June 24, 2016)
  50. Fleet expansion in Frankfurt and other German locations. Retrieved January 16, 2017 .
  51. Pilot project: simply drive a Mercedes-AMG with car2go. September 18, 2017, accessed October 11, 2017 .
  52. car2go expands the business area in the Stuttgart area . December 14, 2013.
  53. car2go strengthens its Stuttgart fleet with electric Mercedes-Benz B-Classes | marsMediaSite. Retrieved January 25, 2018 (German).
  54. car2go downsizes business areas at www.carsharing-news.de, online , accessed on July 20, 2014.
  55. We are adapting the car2go business areas. (No longer available online.) Car2Go, July 1, 2015, archived from the original on October 30, 2015 ; accessed on September 20, 2015 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / blog.car2go.com
  56. NDR: Car sharing is only worthwhile in city centers. In: www.ndr.de. Archived from the original on August 27, 2015 ; accessed on May 12, 2016 .
  57. Martina Ammon: Did you know? What is a "relocation" and which car2gos are parked? June 14, 2017, accessed January 5, 2018 .
  58. USA Today Smart car-sharing service car2go expands in Austin (May 21, 2010)
  59. car2go starts in Seattle, Washington Daimler, December 7, 2012.
  60. Mercedes-Benz Passion Blog car2go rolls internationally - and starts in Vancouver (April 27, 2011) ( Memento from September 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  61. Autoblog Green Daimler will bring electric Car2go carsharing service to Amsterdam by end of 2011 (April 11, 2011)
  62. Fast Company car2go Brings First All-Electric Car-Sharing Service To The US (July 13, 2011)
  63. David Garrick: Car2Go switching electric cars to gas. In: sandiegouniontribune.com. March 16, 2016, accessed March 18, 2016 .
  64. ^ Car2go Introduces a New Way of Carsharing in Denver . prnewswire.com, May 2013.
  65. ÖAMTC: Car2go: Now also in Vienna (December 1, 2011)
  66. car2go operation in Lyon suspended! Mercedes-Benz Passion blog, June 22, 2012.
  67. Ready for the island: car2go brings smart (e) mobility to London Daimler, December 4, 2012.
  68. smart-share: car2go starts in Birmingham . Press release Daimler, May 2013.
  69. Philipp Deppe: car2go is coming to Milan. Mercedes-Benz Passion Blog, August 8, 2013, accessed October 18, 2013 .
  70. Henning Peitsmeier, Munich, Susanne Preuss, Stuttgart: FAZ exclusive: Drive Now and Car2Go before the merger . In: FAZ.NET . January 23, 2018, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed January 25, 2018]).
  71. Daimler takes over Car2Go completely - manager magazin . In: manager magazin . ( manager-magazin.de [accessed on March 31, 2018]).
  72. a b Wirtschaftswoche: BMW & Daimler: EU allows merger of Car2go & DriveNow. Retrieved November 24, 2018 .
  73. https://www.car2go.com/media/data/germany/microsite-press/files/20190228_share-now_car2go-und-drivenow-buendeln-kraefte.pdf
  74. Drive Now and Car2Go are now Share Now. In: The world. January 13, 2020, accessed February 4, 2020 .