BMW is set to expand its recently-launched Munich car-sharing scheme to other cities around Europe.
The carmaker has teamed up with car rental company Sixt, putting 300 1-series models on the roads in Munich for people to use for as little as 25p a minute and you don’t even have to put fuel in.
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People register for the scheme with BMW dealers and are given keyless access to the models which are parked at various points round the city. A mobile phone app will locate the nearest car and, once inside, the user punches in their pin number and away they go. A credit card is debited according to the amount of usage.
As long as the car is left within certain city limits there’s no further charge. Each BMW is tracked by satellite so the company knows where they all are and a team of refuellers keep the tanks topped up.
Tony Douglas, a Munich-based Brit who runs sales and marketing for BMW’s mobility services, said the scheme has been running successfully for the past month.
“BMW provides the cars and Sixt provides the back-end technology in terms of logistics and the customer data bank. We already have 3,000 registered users and we now plan to take the scheme to Berlin.”
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By GlobalDataHe added that as well as the German capital, BMW is talking to other cities around Europe and there is a strong chance that the scheme could come to London, Manchester, Birmingham and others.
It is part of BMW’s plan to keep people connected to ease congestion. The carmaker has put aside US$100m (GBP62m) to invest in mobility services.
Some of this investment has gone into New York based My City Way which provides a number of services including the best way to get from A to B. It is plugged into traffic cameras to advise which route to take – or get the train.
This is coming to the UK with My London Way. Douglas added: “The scheme uses mobile phone apps to direct you to where you want to go as well as finding you points of interest, petrol stations or somewhere to park.”
BMW has also announced a strategic long-term investment in UK website ParkatmyHouse.com, an innovative online parking marketplace which connects homeowners who have driveways, garages and private parking spaces to rent with drivers who need a convenient, safe and cost effective place to park.
BMW i has taken a minority stake in the online parking website founded by British entrepreneur Anthony Eskinazi. He came up with the idea when trying to find somewhere to park at a baseball match in the US – he ended up knocking on someone’s door and had a ‘eureka’ moment.
There are currently more than 125,000 drivers registered on the ParkatmyHouse website, and collectively drivers have saved over a claimed GBP3million in parking charges in the past year by renting an available private parking space through the website, rather than using public car parks and metered street parking.
