Free-floating carsharing is booming. In the first quarter of 2017, Daimler’s car2go rentals increased by 23% to 6.2m.
Worldwide, the international market leader now has over 2.3m customers in 26 locations; in Europe there are over 1.3m customers in 14 locations. A customer survey at the European locations shows the reasons why customers rent a car2go car – and how this differs across Europe.
Customers mainly use car2go for leisure activities such as eating out in restaurant – Amsterdam came top in this area. 73% of the customers questioned in the city of canals said they regularly used car2go for this. In the Austrian capital Vienna, a few less costumers use car2go for this purpose, although more than half (53%) still drive in fact to a typical “Beisl” in a car2go car.
Customers in Rome rent a car2go car more often compared to all other European costumers for their journey to work (35%) while customers in Munich do this less often (21%).
People in Vienna use a car2go car the most for private appointments (45%) such as doctor’s appointments – unlike the people of Duesseldorf and Cologne in the Rhineland, where this use case is not as common (31%).
In Frankfurt, the highest number of customers drive a car2go car to run private errands – such as grocery shopping – while customers in Milan use them not as frequent for shopping (14%).
Car2go chief executive Olivier Reppert said: “The cities we are talking about are very diverse and the inhabitants are very different – and that is also reflected in their usage habits. All customers have one thing in common: They live in a city where people don’t really need their own car but still want one to hand when they need it.”
Around 60% of car2go customers are aged below 36. This customer structure barely varies across the different locations.
