The German manufacturer BMW recently held a press conference in London to announce that it is to extend its DriveNow scheme, which was launched in Germany in 2011 as a joint venture with the Sixt car-rental company.
DriveNow is a car-sharing service that requires users to register on-line for a small fee, before they can pick up a car from various locations; charges are then calculated on a pay-per-minute basis and customers can choose from vehicles that include the Mini and the electric i3. At the end of a journey, users can leave vehicles anywhere in the designated business area.
DriveNow has 360,000 customers in Germany, making it the country’s biggest car-sharing organisation. BMW intends to offer the service in 15 European cities outside Germany and 10 cities in North America. It is looking to succeed where rival automotive manufacturer Daimler failed.
The latter launched its Car2go scheme in the UK in 2012, but abandoned the scheme in May of this year, unable to “conquer the unique challenges of co-ordinating a fluid network of cars and parking spaces”.