INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Volkswagen Group is launching a car-sharing service called WE that only uses electric vehicles, following the lead of rivals such as Daimler
and BMW that have operated their own on-demand car rental services for years.
VW car-sharing service will launch in Germany next year and
then expand to major cities in Europe, North America and Asia beginning in 2020
The entire fleet will be electric vehicles, VW Group said Wednesday.
&We are convinced that the car sharing market still has
potential,&Jürgen Stackmann,Volkswagen board member for sales said in a statement
&That is why we are entering this market with a holistic single-source concept covering all mobility needs from the short journey that takes
just a few minutes to the long vacation trip.&
The German automaker WE business is designed to do more than car-sharing
The WE vehicle-on-demand platform will initially focus on car sharing
But eventually it will include other modes of transportation such as scooters.
Volkswagen showed off two electric concepts in March, an
e-scooter it calls theStreetmate and Cityskater, which the company describes as a &last-mile electric street surfer.& Volkswagen sees the WE
platform helping connect customers to car-sharing service, rent one of these micro-mobility vehicles, or even pay for parking.
Volkswagen
introduced these mobility concepts in March 2018
The Streetmate, on the left, and Cityskater.
The automaker also sees the WE platform connecting to MOIA, the automaker mobility company that
has launched a ride-sharing service with an all-electric shuttle vehicle
Theall-electric car, which made its debut at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin in December, is designed to provide space for up to six
passengers.
The vehicle-on-demand services available on the Volkswagen WE platform will be managed by UMI Urban Mobility International, a
subsidiary of Volkswagen AG that began operating in 2018.
