I received this letter from Bodo Schwieger in Germany that will be of interest to the "old timers" here. StattAuto was featured in the 1995 Rain Magazine articles about carsharing and was the inspiration for some of the CSOs in the US. I'll include a comparison of European CSO usage rates in a future posting soon. - Dave
Dear US Car-Sharers,
Some news from the old continent which might be of interest for you – some time after being bought by the Dutch company Collect Car B.V. the brand “Stattauto” dies. The company remains, but the brand is replaced with the Dutch brand Greenwheels. So now the era of the German car-sharing founder and the sad story of year long management problems is over and the biggest German market – Berlin – has a brand new car-sharing operator.
Most important: They changed the complete operating scheme: Now only two types of cars, only on-board-computers and no static safes (lockboxes - DB) anymore, very simple tariffs by hour and kilometre for day and nighttime, and extensive partnerships with Deutsche Bahn and all local transport associations. Check your German at: www.greenwheels.de.
I am pretty sure that they will succeed with this approach, as they are cutting costs like hell while being easier to use. Berlin should be an easy game, while Hamburg has now three operating car-sharing companies. Greenwheels seems to be the cheapest offer, so lets see what’s going to happen.
Best regards from Germany!
Bodo
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Dr.-Ing. Bodo Schwieger, General Manager
Team Red Networks KG
Grüntaler Str. 10
13357 Berlin / Germany
Tel.: +49.(0)30.138 986-35, Fax -36, Mobil: +49.(0)178.8760898
bodo.schwieger@team-red.net
www.team-red.net
