Last year, BMW and Daimler had announced a joint venture for mobility services. Now, both companies will invest Euro 1 billion to develop and integrate their car sharing, ride hailing, parking, charging and intermodal transport divisions. The respective joint ventures will be called as SHARE NOW, FREE NOW, PARK NOW, CHARGE NOW and REACH NOW.
In the future, both companies plan to merge all the above entities into a single mobility service provider with an all-electric, self-driven vehicle fleet that can charge and park autonomously and integrate with other forms of transport. The cooperation is expected to increase both the companies’ chances in a growing market by sharing investment costs.
SHARE NOW allows customers to rent and pay for vehicles via a smartphone. At present there are 20,000 vehicles deployed across 31 cities across the world. Over 4 million customers have claimed to have used the service so far. Olivier Reppert has been appointed as the CEO while Stefan Glebke will be the CFO.
FREE NOW offers services like taxi, private chauffeurs with rental vehicles and e-scooters across Europe and Latin America. It has a 21 million strong customer base with 2,50,000 drivers enrolled with them. FREE NOW is led by Marc Berg as the CEO, along with Sebastian Hofelich as the CFO.
PARK NOW is a digital parking service that allows users to reserve spots, manage parking times, allows ticketless entry and exit in garages as well as pay fees. It is currently active across 1100 cities in Eurpoe and North America.
CHARGE NOW is a service by Digital Charging Solutions GmbH, which has a network of public charging points. It has 1,00,000 points across 25 countries and has over 250 charge point operators enrolled with them. CHARGE NOW and PARK NOW are headed by Jörg Reimann as CEO, with Thomas Menzel as CFO.
REACH NOW offers a direct access to mobility services like car sharing, ride hailing and bike rentals. There are over 6.7 million users who can book and pay directly for public transport as well. REACH NOW will be managed by Daniela Gerd tom Markotten as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), with Johannes Prantl as Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
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