France is the capital of P2P carsharing

I must admit, reading this article "Car sharing: from mobility service to service of mobility" (in rough English translation here) in Le Blog de la Consommation Collaborative, I was more than a little surprised to learn that there are 8 P2P carsharing and car rental (important distinction, but still...) companies in France!  Where have I been?  What do the French know that we don't?


Surprisingly, 3 (!) of these P2P companies are non-profits really emphasizing the collaborative consumption approach to carsharing:

• Zilok — P2P car rental with in-car technology; as well as other household goods between.
• e-Loue.com — provides contact for carsharing insurance; no in car technology (key swap).
• DeWay — also puts emphasis on the community aspects. 
• Livop — installs a "Livop Box" free in member cars; for both short and long-term rental.
• Cityzencar — highlights the P2P community aspect; provides in-car technology
• Buzzcar — headed by the Robin Chase (co-founder of Zipcar); also with iPhone app to find and reserve but still with key swap.
• Une Voiture a louer (A Car for Rent) — P2P car rental facilitated with an iPhone app; uses key exchange.
•  Voiturelib — recentlydeveloped an iPhone app.

My sense has been that for years, French carsharing has seemed to languish somewhat — a number of services in regional cities of France, but all relatively small, in spite of the involvement by some major players (e.g. Veolia).  That was then...

But now entrepreneurs in France has certainly demonstrated their stuff with eight P2Ps, not to mention the Autolib statement — doing something on a scale not even attempted by Zipcar in New York City — and with battery EVs not less.   

If you're interested in a sense of the French collaborative consumption perspective on P2P, as well as the formation of Voiturelib (a student project), here's an interesting interview with the founders of DeWays discussing their motivations, the issue of insurance (in France, at least)  G-translated.

Finally, if you've wondered why European car manufacturers are creating carsharing subsidiaries, this chart (also from the blog article) give a hint of one reason - car sales in the EU and in France are way down.   In such a situation it makes sense to look around for new markets in the mobility sector. (France must have had one heck of an auto scrap incentive in 2008 to boost auto sales the way they did).

Carsharing News from Europe

In Germany, Autoflotte Online passes on the good news about carsharing from the German carsharing association, Bundesverband Carsharing (BCS):

Mirroring the trend in the US, carsharing membership in Germany grew by of 20.3% from the previous year to 190,000. High growth was reported in the larger cities while membership in smaller carsharing companies (less than 20 vehicles) grew about 15% in 2010.

As of the end of 2010 there were 128 (!) carsharing companies in Germany operating about 5,000 vehicles, an increase of 400 vehicles for the year, or about 8.7% These vehicles were at 2,400 stations - an increase of 9.1% locations (remember, Germany still does not officially allow on-street parking of carsharing vehicles).  The BCS continues to press for a change in German federal law to make on-street parking possible outside of the few pilot projects.

Other big carsharing news from Germany - car2go's expansion to Hamburg - will be covered in a separate post.

EVs in Carsharing

The interest in electric vehicle extends to Europe, as well.   In November Cambio carsharing, in partnership with Greenpeace, introduced several Mitsubishi iMiev vehicles in the Hamburg fleet. Cambio is charging 2.80 € per hour + 17 cents per kilometer. They are requiring members wanting to drive the EVs to attend a special driving school.

And Drive Carsharing added some 3 wheel electric vehicles in a project with German telematics provider Wollnikom according to AutoFlotte Online.

And in Brussels, Belgium, Zen Car launched as an all electric carsharing fleet.  Initially, 29 cars will be at 15 locations.  Rates are set at 7 € per hour with no distance charge (smart move!)   Zen Car is funded by Société Régionale d'Investissement de Bruxelles.

Carsharing "Embryonic but Promising" in France

Meanwhile in France, market research company Groupe Xerfi calls Autopartage "embryonic but promising".   Their report says that French carsharing companies grossed €12.5 million from about 25,000 members and predicted that membership could reach 140,000 members by 2015 with revenues at least 6 times greater.   According to France Autopartage, currently, there are 17 carsharing companies in France, with 5 of them in Paris.

Xerfi says the growth of carsharing in France has been "modest", behind some other countries, but point point to the Paris Autolib program (and general government leadership in the area), as well as interest from major companies like Veolia Transportation, Vinci parking and Hertz Connect (now with an estimated 3,000 subscribers in Paris after two years of operation).  Still, they caution that carsharing is struggling to find a viable economic model (sounds like some other carsharing companies I know).  You can read the full Xerfi report for a mere 1,500 € (and if you do, tell me more...)

Promoting Carsharing in Spain

I was honored to be invited as one of several outside speakers at a one-day workshop to promote the growth of carsharing in Spain held recently in Madrid. The more than 60 people who attended came from a wide range of backgrounds — including Spain's only existing carsharing company, Avancar, various government agencies and several start ups in various stages.

Madrid is a city with many beautiful boulevards, as well as neighborhoods with narrow streets and wonderful surprises everywhere. As you can see, it also has it's share of traffic problems. And we were told that the Spanish may have a fascination for cars, and car ownership, approaching that of the USA.

The day began with a wonderful reminder of the connection between land use and transportation from Michael Glotz Richter and a humorous introduction James Bond in Bremen carsharing video. Conrad Wagner continued with a reminder of Traffic... Mobility... Access... that carsharing is one of many options of mobility management and reviewed how Mobility Switzerland had grown nationally and now was able to provide service in many smaller communities, including the partnership with the Swiss postal service.

In my presentation I described the way in which Zipcar, and previously Flexcar, had set a new standard for marketing and defining the carsharing service in terms of a lifestyle choice and not merely as functional transportation option. I emphasized the importance of partnerships with local government and transit agencies, that competition between two carsharing providers was okay and that companies and the government need to think big (the lesson of Velib). I encourage the Spanish government to create national network by setting standards, supporting local providers, providing carsharing options for smaller cities, integrate carsharing with transit & rail

Local perspective came from several speakers including a perspective on the energy saving potential of carsharing, on customer surveys and possibilities of carsharing in the Basque country. Valuable perspective was provided by speakers from Avancar in Barcelona (formerly Catalunya Carsharing), including Pau Noy, one of the founders of Avancar and operational experience from Dirk Bogaert of Avancar, which included a demonstration of the Convadis access system on one of their hybrid Honda Civics so people could get a better feel for the technology.

The final roundtable discussion included a number of questions about marketing, changing peoples habits and about parking - on street, naturally.

The workshop was very well organized by Enrique Huertas and staff of the transportation consultancy Colin Buchanan in Madrid. We hope that they are successful in helping local governments understand the importance of carsharing and that entrepreneurs are able to get support to launch carsharing all over Spain.

Here's a description of the workshop in Spanish ( or a machine translation in English) with links to all the speaker's presentations.And if nothing else, here's a link to my presentation (3.8 mb).

Daimler says you can have it all with Car2Go

With the demise of Honda DIRACC in Singapore, another car manufacturer gets into the game: Daimler. And not just plain vanilla carsharing, this is (almost) everything you ever dreamed of - one way trips, on demand (no reservation), open-ended (no return time) and no fixed location for return (within a zone, at least).

Car2Go is Call-A-Bike adapted for cars. And not just any car - but Daimler's cute but specialized city car - the Smart.

But talk about an operational nightmare? For many companies, just keeping the cars clean and keeping track of them is a full time job. The "bord-computer", made by Invers, has got a lot of work to do. A nice video (in German) showing the user interface in the car is here.

To get the bugs worked out, initially there will be 50 Smarts in Ulm and only Daimler employees there will be able to use the service. Then the service will be open to the general public. Charges are reported going to be 19¢ per minute (€uro "cents" I'm afraid) - which is about € 9.90 ($12.75 per hour) and a whole day will cost € 49.90 ($64) - certainly in line with Zipcar rates.

Other news reports indicate that Daimler is considering service in the US, although no cities have been mentioned.

But I'll let the press release from Bodo Schwieger from Team Red in Berlin tell the story:

The German car-manufacturer Daimler is starting an innovative business concept called car2go. It is based on the Smart car and is the first fullsize open-end and one-way car-rental system that even operates in a floating fleet without fixed locations.

The technology is especially designed for easy and simple use and improved customer care compared to given rental and sharing schemes, since one-way systems require more detailed information systems.

The system will be operating in Ulm for around six months as a prove-of-concept with Daimler-employees only and then become available for all citizens of Ulm. Further future might be a Daimler operated service for Mega-Cities around the world.

Check the website www.car2go.com and Google "car2go Ulm" for a large number of reports in German and English.

"team red" supported the Daimler project team throughout all phases of realization.".

Bodo Schwieger of Team Red is no new comer to carsharing, he did his engineering dissertation on carsharing and ran a demonstration project of exactly such a service 8 years ago in Berlin. It's all chronicled in his report, International Developments Towards Improved Car-sharing Services, which sometimes appears on Amazon. It's also got a fascinating analysis of Flexcar, as well.

But what about that name - Car2Go? Guess they won't be expanding to Israel anytime soon!

Cambio Jumps to Ireland

The announcement didn't get much publicity but Cambio GmbH of Bremen, Germany has put together a deal to bring carsharing to the Republic of Ireland. As the opening press release says the service will launch on July 4 in Cork in the south of Ireland.

It will be operated by Mendes GoCar Ltd. under the brand name GoCar – Cambio Ireland. Interestingly, they refer to the service as "carsharing" and not a "car club" as they do in Great Britain.

The operation will launch with 6 Ford Fiestas, a Ford Focus and a Ford Transit Connect van at 3 "Go Bases". Ford was selected because of a long association with the company, according to the press release, which had a factory there until 1984. Rates will be €5 - 6 per hour and €0.30 - 0.40 per kilometer. There is a refundable deposit of €200 and a monthly fee of €7 per customer (€3 per additional driver).

The new company will be taking advantage of the service provided by Cambio and the experience of Cambio members in Germany and Belgium. GoCar will use Invers technology and the Cambio web and reservation system.

The service is being operated as part of the Cork City Integrated Sustainable Transport System. Free on-street parking spaces have been allocated. "Corkonians are going to be ahead of the pack. Operations of this new CarSharing service will commence in Cork on the 4th July, followed later by Dublin and other cities," according to Graham Lightfoot, managing director of the new service.
'
That name may be familiar to old timers, since Lightfoot was the author of Pay As Your Drive Carsharing report for the EU. He was involved with an effort to form a carsharing cooperative in Dublin in the mid-1990s. More recently Lightfoot was the head of the Irish Community Transport Association and he and others organized a high profile conference (pdf) last September to lay the groundwork for the current launch.

The city of Cork has already signed up for 3 vehicles so they off to a good start. Best wishes to a new a service in a new country. Congratulations to Graham Lightfoot for his persistence over the years and to Joachim Schwarz at Cambio for making this happen.

Paris proposes a dubious idea

The Guardian (London) and other newspapers report that Paris is moving forward with its plans for an electric carsharing program - hoping to follow onto the success of the Velib public bicycle system.

They're hoping for 4,000 vehicles at 700 locations around Paris - twice as many vehicles as when the concept was first mentioned 6 months ago. The system would allow one-way trips between stations. Guardian article suggests that rates would be €200-€250 (about $300-$400) per month to drive about 60 miles. No specific brand of electric vehicle is suggested (but US readers should remember that France has had several pure electric highway cars made by major French car manufacturers for many years).

You know it's a different political system in France when a cautionary note about the whole idea can be sounded by a Deputy Mayor, "I'm very sceptical," said Denis Baupin quoted in the Guardian article, a Green party deputy mayor. "If this scheme encourages people to pick up these cars every day, using them to go into work and back instead of using bikes or the metro, crowding roads and changing habits, that's a problem. I think we would be better off promoting car-sharing schemes like the ones in Britain that work for occasional use."

My 2¢: Unless the rates are very carefully designed this service will be a huge expense (without the advertising revenues that the comparatively expensive Velib bicycle system depends on) and could easily have exactly the effect Mssr. Baupin menions: robbing passengers from the Metro and Velib bicycle program.

For what it's worth, the article is incorrect in stating that it's the first electric car project in Paris. Just 10 years ago Paris was the site of the innovative Praxitele program that provided a small-scale demonstration (50 vehicles at 5 stations) of exactly the service being proposed now - self service electric cars allowing one way trips between stations. Here is some background information about the Praxitele. Praxitelle rates were 40 francs per 30 minutes + 2 francs per minute beyond (no distance fee).

Sixt Car Rental Gets into Carsharing in Berlin

Ever vigilant Bodo Schwieger of Team Red transportation consultancy tipped me off to really big news out of Germany: Sixt Rent A Car, an international car rental company, is getting into carsharing. And they're starting in one of the ripest plums of Europe — Berlin — going up against the major Dutch carsharing company, Greenwheels, which took over ailing StattAuto several years ago. It is expected to the first of many cities in which Sixti will provide car club services.

As reported in Börse Online, the Sixti Car Club, operating under the brand of Sixt's low cost car rental service, will launch on Wednesday with 100 cars at 8 locations in the center of Berlin.

Vehicles types will be Smarts, Mercedes B-class and, of course, the ever popular darling vehicle of carsharing - the Mini, showing 4 vehicle classes. The early information indicates that members can book cars via the web or "handy" (cell phone) and that they will be able to unlock the cars using a code text messaged to their phone (the website FAQ doesn't mention this feature).

Pricing sets up an interesting dynamic: the Sixti web site says vehicles start at 1.50 € per hour, but a closer look reveals that this is the overnight rate; with day rates starting at 4.50 € per hour + 0.12 € per kilometer. Greenwheels, on the other hand, with a somewhat limited selection of vehicle types, starts at 4 € per hour + 0.23 € per kilometer. Daily rates from Sixti Car Club are 32 € + 0.15 € per km for Smart rented 1-4 days (dropping to 22 € for 5-7 days). Greenwheels does not offer daily rates, but their 25 € a Month plan offers rates as low as 2.40 € per hour + 0.20 € per km (functionally a 42 € daily rate including overnight rates).

The Börse article states that Sixt will also be join to the German Federal Association of Carsharing, which presently has 80 members with over 3000 vehicles.

Sixt, based in Munich, has been an innovator for years. The were a pioneer in automated key dispensers for business travelers, with machines similar to ATM for check out and check in at all major European airports and many German train stations. Then they started a low-cost subsidiary, Sixti, that advertises vehicles "starting at 9.99 €" a day. Sixti has 92 locations in 9 countries. The Börse article says that 56% of Sixt's rental come from business rentals.

They're not the only car rental company operating carsharing in Europe, but likely to soon be the largest: in Austria Denzel Car Rental operated carsharing in several cities (but recently spun off the operation into a partnership with with Mobility Carsharing Switzerland); the Hertz franchisee operates carsharing under the Hertz name in Denmark and Avis partnered with Vinci Parking Company to create Okigo in Paris.

Sixti has produced a nice intro video (in German) to their service that has a cute opening.

Swiss Carsharing Financials

There are not many carsharing companies that publish their financial statements - but Mobility Carsharing Switzerland, a cooperative, does. So I thought you'd be interested in what it looks like in this machine translated summary from original German. If you read German you can see a more detailed breakdown of 2006 operating performance in this PDF.

A little background about Mobility: Mobility is a cooperative. It has 2 classes of customers: Users and Cooperative members. Coop members get a discount in usage fees in return for making a refundable deposit of CHF 1000 + a non refundable admission fee of CHF 250. They have various programs, many of which involve prepayment that give usage discounts of up to 20%.

2007 has been a busy year for Mobility which started an several innovative programs:
• Business carsharing program which provides fleet vehicles for businesses that are exclusive use but reserved through the Mobility reservation system and have the company's logo on them.
• They formed a joint venture with one of the major car rental companies in Austria (described below) to jointly operate the carsharing service in Austria, which Denzel had been operating by itself (using Mobility technology).
• Monthly car rental program which provides an exclusive use car for a month, while providing access to the entire Mobility nationwide fleet at no extra cost.
• Pioneered Click and Drive through a partnership with Cornecard, a major credit card company in Switzerland, to offer, cardholders access to Mobility vehicles on a pay as you go basis. The charge card is used to unlock the vehicle.

As you read the financials below keep in mind that currently one Swiss Franc = $0.996 US - so it's just about 1:1 conversion.

Mobility continues to grow

Mobility look back on a successful year. With an increase of 7,500 of new customers - the second largest customer growth in its 10-year history. In good cooperation with distribution partners, sales were up 11.2 percent to CHF 50.6 million. The Mobility Group includes the fiscal year 2007 with a consolidated operating profit EBIT of CHF 1'067'036 .- and a profit of CHF 646'689 .-. The company's sales in the core business grew by 11 percent. With 1,050 locations in Switzerland and the market in Austria could Mobility its leading position in the car market continues to expand.

Mobility customers use 1,950 vehicles at 1,050 locations throughout Switzerland around the clock in self service available. The number of customers grew 7,500, from 69,600 to 77,100 (previous year's growth was 5,900), or 10.8 percent (9.3 percent last year). The above-average growth allowed Mobility, the first time in four years its network to an additional 50 to 1,050 locations nationwide. The fleet was 2007 to 150 additional vehicles increased. The number of cooperative members in the same period rose by around 2,500 to 34'500 to (+ 7.8 percent over the previous year).

Growth strategy pursued

In 2007 Mobility made large investments in the market, the expansion of the fleet and locations, as well as in pioneering technologies (telematics and vehicle operating software) which led to the accelerated customer growth. The consistent growth strategy has led to a strategy consolidated operating profit of CHF 1'067'036 .- (CHF 2'106'536 .-). The annual profit amounts to CHF 646'689 .- (CHF 1'551'750 .-).


Business increased acceptance CarSharing

Business Mobility car recorded in fiscal 2007, a customer growth of 21 percent. About 2,100 companies sat at the end of 2007 for its corporate mobility on Mobility. They generated 18 percent of the total turnover of Mobility. The already existing offers in the car-sharing business in October with the product "Mobility Exclusive." It is the only vehicle for the company's car reserved and can be used with your own company logo.

Expand to Austria

A daughter company of Mobility, Mobility Support AG, is the newly developed Mobility licensing system which enabled it to expand abroad for the first time in fiscal 2007. Together with the Wolfgang Denzel AG operates the Mobility cooperative with a half ownership in the joint venture Denzel Mobility Car GmbH.

Sustainability as entrepreneurial attitude

In its business activities Mobility concentrates on sustainability. This attitude is reflected not only in the job, but in a responsible use of employees and the stakeholders in the business environment. The arithmetic average fuel consumption of the Mobility fleet, for example, adopted last year by 6.48l/100 km on 6.37l/100 km. Thus, the efficiency of the above-mobility vehicles annually 520'000 litres of fuel saved. Moreover meet Mobility cars 35g CO2/km less (- 18.7 percent) than the average of new cars registered in Switzerland in 2006. About 11 percent of Mobility customers and 100% of Mobility corporate trips are compensated by the MyClimate Foundation CO2 offset program. compensated. For internal aspects demonstrates the sustainability approach, especially in the fall in turnover rate at 21.4 percent, significantly decreased the absence of illness and injury to 4.1 days (previous year: 5 days) and the high proportion of women in the workforce, including at the leadership level.

Growth of Mobility Carsharing Switzerland

Cambio - A Model for US Carsharing Cooperation?

There have been ongoing discussions in both Canada and US about closer cooperation between the independent carshares. And a few steps, such as this indication of "visiting rights" for members of other carshares. There's lots more opportunities for cooperation, especially in areas that could reduce operating costs by sharing work.

I've recently been to Germany (where there are 227 German cities with carsharing) and had a very interesting meeting with the Joachim Schwarz CEO of cambio KG, the largest carsharing organization in Germany (15,000 members, 8 cities), and which also operates all the carsharing in Belgium (4,500 members, 11 cities), as well.

What's interesting to me about cambio (they like to spell it with a lower case c) is how they operate and how they were established - quite different from growth of national carsharing in the US.

Mr. Schwarz told me that cambio was formed in 2000 when the 3 of the larger independent carsharing organizations in Germany decided they would be more competitive operating under a single, joint brand (StadtAuto Bremen, StadtteilAuto Aachen and STATTAUTO Köln). It was a time when there were well over 100 mostly smaller independent carshare companies operating in Germany. Large corporate players, ShellDrive and DB Carsharing had or were about to enter the market so the time was ripe for cooperation in the face of competition.

Cambio is a brand, which includes not only the logo but also a standard for a level of service the customer can expect. Cambio has several different types of relationships with member carsharing companies - some are full-fledged "cambio" member companies, others have cooperative agreements so that cambio members can use vehicles, and finally, cambio provides "back office" services to other carshares (another 16,000 members, 18 cities, 600 cars) - most notably the Stadtmobil operations.

Mr. Schwarz explained that the idea in the creation of cambio was to get economies of scale in areas where it would lower costs, and stay local in relation to the customer and the fleet, which the local companies do. The process has ended up at about 15% of costs going to central services. These services include reservation system, servers, help desk (for internal use), customer call center, brand, website marketing and press relations, joint purchase of cars, insurance and other services, bookkeeping and accounting services..

Cambio has developed a very effective website and reservation system and they've thought through a number of operational details in very clever ways. For example, the way they've structured their web res. system, through a simple arrangement, they are able to determine what type of car the member would really like to find at a particular location. And cambio is the only company outside of Singapore to offer open-ended trips (no fixed return time). Cambio system-wide data shows a 93% availability that the customer will get the car they want when they want it; and 99.7% reliability that the car will be ready to go when they get to the station.

In addition to the brand and support, one of the most valuable aspects of affiliating with cambio is providing proprietary operational data and comparative benchmark performance information to each member. This enables them to see how they're doing against all other companies' averages.

Decisions about cambio are made in an annual meeting of member companies over a 3-4 days. Any changes in pricing, new features for the website, technology, etc. are decided at this meeting. Of course, all this has a price - about 15% of gross revenues. The exact amount is based on a formula and has actually gone down over time - it's at about 13.5% now.

The development of carsharing in Belgium provides an interesting case-study, somewhat different than the process that went into the original cambio company. Cambio joined a non-profit organization, Taxistop and the national auto club VTB/VAB to create an operating company Optimobil Belgium. In turn, Optimobil owns 3 subsidiary companies, since the linguistic regions of Belgium are quite distinct. The public transport companies in two of the regions have made major investments in their respective regional company. Optimobil provides similar services to its Belgium subsidiaries that cambio does in Germany.

I think the cambio model provides a model for cooperation between carshares in the US and/or Canada. Cambio is certainly interested in consulting and possibly some sort of joint-venture in the US. They're well aware that Germany isn't the USA (and even Canada!). But they have lots of direct experience about what works (and what doesn't work) in such cooperative arrangements. If you're interested in more details about how this cooperative arrangement could be developed, please contact me.

What Does Carsharing Cost in Europe?

Continuing from my earlier comparisons of US and Canadian companies, below is a comparison of rates for personal memberships from some of the major European carshares, converted to US dollars and distance. I've tried to keep the comparison for a similar vehicle from each service - typically an Opel Astra station wagon (Kombi), which is not necessarily the smallest, least expensive vehicle in the fleets.

I have not always been able to determine monthly or annual membership fees, so please let me know if I have not understood the offers correctly.

Germany
Cambio Start - $3.48/hour + $0.24/mile + $3/month membership fee
Cambio Activ - $2.76/hour + $0.20/mile + $12/month membership fee
Greenwheels - $3.60/hour + $0.09/mile + $12/month membership fee
ShellDrive - $3.24/hour + $0.22/mile for first 30 miles; $0.27/mile additional

Holland
Greenwheels - $6.00/hour + $0.07/mile + $6 per month membership fee

Denmark
Hertz Delebilen A - $4.56/hour + $0.29/mile for first 80 miles, then $0.26/mile additional
(sorry can't identify membership fee - does anyone read Danish?)
Hertz Delebilen C - $5.67/hour + $0.59/mile for first 80 miles, then $0.56/mile additional

Italy
Carsharing Firenze - $3.12/hour + $0.68/mile for first 50 miles then $0.36/mile additional

Switzerland
Mobility User - $2.37/hour + $0.33/mile for first 60 miles, then $0.17/mile for all additional per trip
Mobility Member - $2.37/hour + $0.27/mile for first 60 miles, then $0.16/mile for all additional per trip
(Members pay a $987 deposit of which $790 is refundable; users pay nothing)

UK
Streetcar (London) - $8.91/hour + $0.34/mile + no membership fee
CityCar Club low user - $8.00/hour + $0.32/mile + $9/month membership fee
CityCar Club standard - $5.40/hour + $0.32/mile + $27/month membership fee
Urbigo Individual - $9.90 for the first hour/$4.75 for each additional hour + $0.19/mile for first 30 miles, then $0.50 for all additional miles

Some comments about the European marketplace for carsharing:
• The highly fragmented German carsharing market appears to be consolidating around Cambio, ShellDrive and Greenwheels.
• One can certainly see a big difference in costs between UK and the continent, some of which must be accounted for by the cost of doing business in the UK.
• The first CSO to "go public" is CityCar Club in London which has announced intention to sell shares through the OFEX exchange.
• Companies from other industries are starting to enter carsharing: Royal Dutch Shell owns ShellDrive. Rental car companies operate carsharing in the UK, Urbigo (Avis), and Denmark, Hertz Delebilen ("Hertz Carsharing"), both of which offer vehicles in multiple cities.
• Urbigo has perhaps the most unusual rate structure: charging more for the first hour of use, and also charging an increasing amount for additional miles after the first 30 rather than a more typical lower per mile after the inittial increment.

Greenwheels Replaces StattAuto in Berlin

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
*********************************************
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