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.
The linkage with German P2P company AutoNetzer.de, which now lists itself as "part of the CAR2SHARE initiative", is really quite remarkable.
Surprisingly, at least at time this post was written there's far less direct connection with car2go, Daimler's the sister one-way/on-demand carsharing service — beyond the car2go logo appearing at the bottom of the car2share home page.
Best of luck Daimler. You've scored a hit with car2go, so I'll be interested to see how the partnership with Autonetzer works out, as well your more traditional carsharing offering works.
