Car Insurance Car

More consolidation in the carsharing industry.  

Reports from Automobilwoche of Germany say that Volkswagen Financial Services is purchasing a 60% stake in Collect Car BV of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, operators of Greenwheels Carsharing.

The new owners will be a joint venture between VW Financial Services and the current majority owner Pon Holdings, a Dutch conglomerate with transportation-related holdings in auto importing and bicycle manufacturing.

The head of VW Financial Services Frank Witter told AutomobilWoche:

"We see, pay-per-use approach interesting growth opportunities. With Greenwheels you win a very successful partner whose experience in car sharing and the integration into public transport concepts will move help us move forward."

Quicar
VW launched developed and its own carsharing service with a pilot project called Quicar in Hannover, Germany in November, 2011.  The service was based on a traditional station-based, round-trip service model.  Quicar has some links to local VW dealers for longer-term rentals.  Quicar has hinted at future innovations in service since launch and many observers wondered if they would expand into the now crowded arena of one-way/on-demand floating fleet carsharing, pioneered by German automaker Daimler.

In 2012 VW demonstrated Quicar to their world-wide network of importers and affiliates, apparently to gauge possible interest in Quicar offerings in other countries.  But, to date, Hannover is the sole location for Quicar.  The German market is highly competitive with several competitors in ever major market, including both round trip and one-way services.

Greenwheels

Greenwheels started in 1995, is the Netherlands largest carsharing provider, with more than 2,000 vehicles total.  They face competition from ConnectCar and StudentCar in a number of cities.

Greenwheels began service in Germany in 2004, taking over operation of the ill-fated StattAuto operations in Berlin and Hamburg.  It now operates in 7 major cities in Germany.   While the limited range of vehicle choices, with an emphasis on smaller, economy vehicles, appears to work in the Netherlands, it may be holding them back in Germany.  Another factor holding them back there may be the reportedly unresponsive customer service.

Greenwheels had been eyeing the London and made a small effort in this sprawling market, negotiating permission for parking in only two boroughs.  But in March 2013 they quietly pulled out.

What's Ahead?

So bravo to Mobility for coming up with this program: May your 6 month membership rates zoom up and your insurance claims stay low!  (And thanks to Carsharingblog.de for the tip on this program)

I first heard about the concept of mobility on demand from Dan Sturges several years ago, but it's been promoted by other people and groups, as well — MIT Media Labs, to name one.  Typically, a "mobility on demand" system would consist of a network of lightweight 1-2 passenger vehicles, typically electric, usually operating between (recharging) stations.  The concept, as Dan likes to explain it, is that the MOD system is your "near car" and a more classic carsharing or car rental could serve as your "far car", if a train or bus option wasn't available.

Arguably, we already have several mobility on demand systems operating already: public bicycle sharing is also mobility on demand, as is one-way carsharing, like car2go or Autolib' in Paris.


The i-Road is a "lean machine" as one website put it.


Toyota isn't the only OEM working on mobility on demand.  General Motors has shown a similar sized vehicle, the EN-V, and there have been news reports of a possible demonstration project using this vehicle in China.

We will be watching these mobility on demand systems with interest.

Where have I been?  I must have been asleep at the keyboard when Daimler Innovations launched car2share in Hamburg at the end of January!


At first glance Car2share seems like more or less traditional round trip, fixed parking location, hourly carsharing, but with a bit of Daimler twist.  They've structured their offering with 3 components:

• Private — direct link to P2P car rental provider AutoNetzer.de
• Living — Daimler vehicles at a high end residential development
• Working — Daimler vehicles for corporate customers at an office park in Hamburg-Harburg

The Living car2share places new Daimler vehicles at a new upscale development the Marina at Castle Island (Marina auf der Schloss Insel) and a corporate car2share ("working") at a high tech business park in Hamburg called Channel Hamburg.


The Daimler vehicles included in the service are interesting: the Mercedes B-class sedan (gasoline), a Smart Electric Drive or Mercedes "Vito" E-Cell transporter van (similar to a Sprinter in the US), the latter two EVs recharged by renewable energy.

Rates for car2share vehicle usage is slightly higher but competitve than other German carshares operating in Hamburg:
  Smart Electric Drive € 2.20 per hour + €0.21 per kilometer; daily rate 35€
  Mercedes B-class  € 2.52 + €0.25 per kilometer; daily rate 35€
  Mercedes Transporter E-Cell € 3.92 + €0.29 per kilometer; daily rate 39€
  Monthly membership residential: €19 per month

Businesses pay a monthly membership based on the number of employees signed up:
  Small (up to 10 employees) 39 €
  Medium (up to 25) 69 €
  Large (up to 50) 119 €

Included is gasoline (or electric recharge) and insurance, with a € 500 deductible.

March has been a busy month in the world of carsharing executives, although perhaps not quite as bad as it was for Julius Ceasar:

Zipcar Shake Up — CEO Scott Griffith unexpectedly announced his resignation, immediately after the Avis deal was completed.  He handed the reins over to the COO Mark Norman.  Scott joined Zipcar in 2003, replacing co-founder Robin Chase.

Mark Norman and Scott Griffith in earlier times.

"We’ve built an incredible company; we’ve taken a big idea and turned it into a larger than life brand at the leading edge of an expanding global category; we’ve developed a technology platform that has become the industry standard; we’ve inspired the development of collaborative consumption; and we’ve sparked a major behavior shift in the areas of urban and campus mobility."

Full letter here.

My sense is that Scott had the complicated, and perhaps thankless job, of trying to reconcile conflicting needs major investors, apparently interested in getting their investment, getting the company to a marginally profitable place, and trying to grow the business at the same time.

Although the blogosphere was breathless with early commentators talking about Avis could ruin Zipcar, there's certainly been no evidence to date.  Perhaps the first fruit of the merger has been the announcement of Zipcar at airport locations (!) at all three major airports in in New York City - located in the Avis parking areas, not surprisingly.  The initial batch of vehicles appear to be pretty standard sedans, with no BMWs or lifestyle vehicles (yet).  And they are round-trip cars (must be returned to the airport) and not one-way vehicles, as Hertz On Demand offers between the airports and Manhattan locations.

Whipcar founders Vinay Gupta (left) and Tom Wright

Mysterious Demise of Whipcar — Talk about cryptic, Whipcar announced on Monday, March 12 it was shutting down.  The only explanation they've offered, so far is this:

"However, while so many of you saw the future, we have discovered there are still barriers to widespread adoption of peer-to-peer car rental in the UK. As a small team with limited resources, we have taken a good long look at these scaling challenges. And, after much thought, we have made the extremely difficult decision to close WhipCar. We would like to thank our wonderful community members, our colleagues and our investors for their incredible support over the past three exciting years."

One wonders exactly what the "barriers to widespread adoption" they have in mind?


Some Thoughts — One certainly gets the sense that P2P carsharing may be struggling a bit these days, at least in the North America and the UK.  But I wonder if any new business could meet the heady expectations we all had for P2P in the early days — expanding into the suburbs, putting traditional carsharing companies out of business within a few years, etc.  

Some P2P companies have struggled to find an affordable in-car technology solution that could scale with their hoped for growth, while others have opted out of car technology game altogether and chosen to occupy the P2P car rental niche, instead.

And marketing P2P carsharing is only slightly different than marketing traditional carsharing.  The P2P companies have proved that people will list their cars for rent by others and that only $100-$200 per month income is sufficient reward.   The challenge for all carsharing continues to be getting drivers/renters past the perceived convenience of car ownership continues to be a huge hurdle in a country with  cheap gasoline, low taxes on cars and abundant parking in most places.