Car2go and Drivenow have joined forces to create a new operator that will be present in Europe and North America across 30 cities with 20,000 vehicles. Meanwhile, shared mobility is also growing in Italy.
There are at least four million users who will be able to benefit from the new operator Share Now, born from the merger of Car2go and Drivenow, which makes available over 20,000 BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Smart and Mini vehicles. The new car sharing service is operational in 30 cities across Europe and North America and will be the largest in the world by numbers and vehicles available. But sustainable and electric mobility will be Share Now's true added value: with four fully electric cities and 13 locations with partially electric fleets, the service makes available 3,200 electric vehicles that have already covered a total of approximately 120 million kilometres.
"Share Now's vision is clear – says Olivier Reppert, chief executive of Car2go and now at the helm of the newly formed company, in a statement – to develop sustainable mobility for and with cities, reducing traffic and emissions." According to the CEO, one shared vehicle replaces up to eight private cars: "Our car sharing service improves quality of life in cities, precisely because it offers an economically efficient and flexible alternative to car ownership.
Both apps now display the entire fleet so that users can hire vehicles from both operators. "In Milan, for example, customers will be able to find 1,440 BMW, Mini and Smart vehicles in both the car2go app and the DriveNow app," explains Reppert. Furthermore, anyone registered with only one of the two car sharing services will be able to sign up to the other at no cost.
According to a recent report released by the Osservatorio nazionale sulla Sharing mobility, over the three-year period 2015–2017 total shared mobility services grew by an average of 17 per cent per year, reaching a count of 7,679 shared cars spread across the entire Italian territory. Over the same period, the number of vehicles in circulation practically doubled.
Some 18.1 million Italians have access to at least one shared mobility service (including bike sharing, scooter sharing and carpooling). Even though 97 per cent of Italian municipalities have no active rental service, whether station-based or free-floating. The bicycle nonetheless takes the lion's share, accounting for 76 per cent of services available in Italy. The number of electric vehicles is also growing sharply, having increased 3.5 times in three years, rising from approximately 620 vehicles in 2015 to around 2,200 in 2017. A figure that represents 27 per cent of all shared vehicles travelling on Italian roads. Vehicles that circulate without emitting CO2 or pollutants.