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Daimler Takes Full Control of car2go Sharing Service

The battle for the new market of car sharing is heating up. Following January’s announcement that BMW took full control of DriveNow, the car-sharing service the Bavarians co-created together with Sixth, Daimler makes its move and says it has acquired full control of car2go, after buying out joint venture partner Europcar Group.
car2go under Daimler's full control 5 photos
Photo: Daimler
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As of July 2017, car2go is the world’s largest car sharing company, having over two and a half million members worldwide and a fleet of 14,000 vehicles, spread out in Europe, Asia and North America. In 2017 alone there have been 24 million rentals of car2go cars, according to official figures.

Daimler is involved in two other companies with similar interests, moovel and mytaxi. Combined with the customer pool from car2go, that would make for nearly 18 million customers of Daimler’s mobility services, globally.

“Over the course of the last several months, we have intensified our investments in mobility services in order to create a holistic mobility system with a broad portfolio,” said Jörg Lamparter, Daimler’s Head of Mobility Services.

“We want to thank Europcar for their great support as we went from a car sharing start up to the leading car sharing company in the world.”

Daimler’s decision to acquire full control of car2go comes on the heels of BMW’s announcement that it plans to have 100 million customers of their mobility services by 2025. But car2go's acquisition might be a weapon in Daimler's arsenal as it might be a bargaining chip as well.

There are rumors in the industry that BMW and Daimler are in talks for a merger of their two car sharing companies. Having full control of their respective services would make a merger easier. According to initial information, the new combined force would be run independently by the two giants in a form that is not yet clear.

Officially, both German companies are refusing to talk about the subject.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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