Wednesday, December 28, 2016

The Year in Carsharing - In Reverse

Here are some highlights of developments in the worldwide carsharing industry during 2016.  They're taken from my Twitter feed @Carsharing_US.  This is a hardly a definitive list of developments in carsharing, only what caught my attention (and you can see that during certain months I was paying attention to other things!)

I think it gives a good sense that carsharing is growing and changing in lots of areas -  Europe much more so than here.   (Which is hardly surprising given the density of cities, quality of public transport and cost of private car ownership in Europe.)  But Zipcar continues to innovate both here and in Europe and one-way carsharing is available in 13 cities in North America.

December
VW announces mobility projects for Rwanda, Africa
Green Commuter launches with 20 EV carsharing fleet for Chatanooga
LA selects Bolloré Bluecar for EV carsharing pilot serving "disadvantaged neighborhoods"
Audi On Demand opens first location in Germany
Citroen launches E Mov casharing in Madrid with Citroen C-Zeros
ReachNow Residential launched in Brooklyn - offers RT carshare to apartments and condos
Vancouver BC has more carsharing members and cars than Portland or Seattle

November
Autolib' Paris is 5 years old
Car2Go closes Minneapolis, cites high taxes as part of the problem
Car2Go ends service in San Diego, after replacing EV fleet with gas earlier in the year
Pincars, carsharing for Richmond, Virginia launched
ReachNow launches in Brooklyn; also offers ReachNow Ride (taxi) and ReachNow Share (rental)
Daimler announces P2P platform Croove, listing all car brands to start in Munich
City Carshare San Francisco sold to Carma, outsources service to Getaround
Nissan announces Get and Go carsharing in Paris for 2017
GM invests in Chinese trip planning start up
Mobility Switzerland one-way carshare Catch A Car opens second city, Geneva

October
Ridehailing now more popular with business travelers than car rental and taxi combined
Toyota announces Smart Key Box technology demo with Getaround
BMW offers EV mobility bundle in Switzerland - train, carshare, bikeshare and i-3 for 1,100 CHF/month
Zipcar offers one-way trips between Baltimore - Washington, DC
GM expands Maven carsharing in San Francisco and other US cities
Ford closes GoDrive pilot project in London
Robin Chase shows how self driving cars could either improve cities or ruin them
Audi At Home offers services to luxury condos in Hong Kong

September
VW announces Moia - mobility brand with carsharing, ride hailing
Italian EV carshares expand to Roma with Twizy and Zoe cars
Citroen invests in CommunAuto
Bolloré launches BlueSG in Singapore
GM Maven offers one way trips between Ann Arbor - Detroit airport
Moscow to have 5 one-way carshare companies
Zipcar passes one million members worldwide
Zipcar offers Zipbike on 15 college campuses
Zipcar launches one-way carshare in Brussels
August
GM announces that Opel will operate Maven carsharing services in Germany 
US study shows that carsharing trips are taxed higher than rental car
July
Tesla Master Plan Part 2 announces a future Tesla Carsharing Network
Mobility announces one-way trips between Zurich and Bern city and airports
Awto - first carshare in Chile launched

June
Zipcar rolls out 100 one-way vehicles in Seattle
Ford discovers no one is interested in their fractional ownership pilot program
Toyota launches Let'sGo carsharing in Dublin, Ireland
Spain announces special parking and HOV lane privileges for carsharing vehicles
Tel Aviv announces $26 million investment for one-way cashiering to go to local Car2Go Israel
Car2Go Chonquing signs up 78,000 members in 2 months (Seattle took 2 years)
50 hydrogen Hyundais join BeeZero carsharing in Munich
Team Red published detailed evaluation of round trip and one way carsharing effects in Munich
EuropeCar acquires BlueMove (Madrid), rebrands as BlueMove Ubeeqo
Lots of speculation about Apple computer car and carsharing turned out to be nothing
Toyota Ha:Mo ("harmonious mobility") demonstration with leaning i-Road vehicles in Grenoble,   France reaches half way point

May
Daimler Car2Go reports € 64 million loss for 2015 (that's an Uber-scale investment in the future!) 
GM expands Maven to Boston, Chicago and Washington DC

March
UK's pioneer City Car Club rebranded as Enterprise Car Share
BMW re-enters the US market with ReachNow in Seattle
Car2Go replaces the all-EV fleet of Smart cars with gasoline after 5 years of hassle
Carsharing drove record profits for Japan's Park24
Vancouver BC exceeds 100,000 carsharing member (sharing 2,100 vehicles)
Car2Go closes Miami citing high costs due to tax rates

February
Sixt says DriveNow grew by 50% in previous year - to 580,000 members and 4,000 cars
Boston Consulting Group predicts worldwide carsharing membership to reach 35 million by 2021
January
GM launches Maven casharing at University of Michigan with 21 vehicles
VW replaces Quicar carsharing in Hanover with Greenwheels brand
Waive Carsharing gives 2 free hours driving in ad-wrapped EVs in Santa Monica, Calif.
EuropeCar launches Matcha Carsharing in London and Paris
CommunAuto (Montreal) and Vrtucar (Ottawa) merge to improve service in eastern Canada.
Ford GoDrive expands to 21 stations at Holiday Inn Express hotels in London
Audi invests $21 million in Silvercar rental service

If you want to see the news story that provides more detail about these headlines, you'll have to go to my Twitter feed, search back to the month.

Did I miss some important developments?  Let me know, via comments below or email me directly.