Photo: Daimler
As of this month, Daimler’s car-sharing service that goes by the name of car2go has made its way to Chicago, thus making the Windy City the tenth location in the U.S. to benefit from the service.
400 cars will be used for local operations, including dozens of smart fortwo and Mercedes-Benz CLA and GLA vehicles. In all, the company now has car sharing operations up and running in 25 cities on three continents.
Earlier this year, Daimler and BMW signed an unlikely partnership meant to place their car-sharing services, car2go and DriveNow, in the position to rule this ever-growing market. By 2025, the two plan to have one hundred million customers between them.
The collaboration between the carmakers will target everything from on-demand mobility to electric vehicle charging.
The move seems to have paid off, as 2018 is shaping up to be the best year ever for car2go. Since January, the customer pool of the service grew by 300,000 people, to a global total of 3.3 million customers, an increase of 25 percent year-over-year.
Daimler says that during the first six months of the year the 14,000 car2go vehicles were driven for over 90 million kilometers worldwide. Ten percent of that distance was covered by the 1,400 electric cars available in the fleet.
“Carsharing is becoming increasingly popular worldwide,” said in a statement car2go CEO Olivier Reppert.
“Six months into 2018, all our figures clearly show that this year will be the most successful year in the history of car2go. The cultural trend towards a sharing economy continues to pick up speed.”
Compared to a usual car rental service, or with any taxi service, car sharing comes with fewer headaches for the customers, money-wise. There is no deposit required, no fees or membership costs of any kind and, on top of it all, for the money customers pay they get insurance, gas, and parking included.
Earlier this year, Daimler and BMW signed an unlikely partnership meant to place their car-sharing services, car2go and DriveNow, in the position to rule this ever-growing market. By 2025, the two plan to have one hundred million customers between them.
The collaboration between the carmakers will target everything from on-demand mobility to electric vehicle charging.
The move seems to have paid off, as 2018 is shaping up to be the best year ever for car2go. Since January, the customer pool of the service grew by 300,000 people, to a global total of 3.3 million customers, an increase of 25 percent year-over-year.
Daimler says that during the first six months of the year the 14,000 car2go vehicles were driven for over 90 million kilometers worldwide. Ten percent of that distance was covered by the 1,400 electric cars available in the fleet.
“Carsharing is becoming increasingly popular worldwide,” said in a statement car2go CEO Olivier Reppert.
“Six months into 2018, all our figures clearly show that this year will be the most successful year in the history of car2go. The cultural trend towards a sharing economy continues to pick up speed.”
Compared to a usual car rental service, or with any taxi service, car sharing comes with fewer headaches for the customers, money-wise. There is no deposit required, no fees or membership costs of any kind and, on top of it all, for the money customers pay they get insurance, gas, and parking included.
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