United to take on the future of mobility.
It seems that the emergence of ride-sharing and one-way mobility solutions, and their successes around the world, have pushed two competitors together to form a union that promises to provide considerable and substantial competition to industry fixtures. BMW and Daimler have been in talks to combine their ride-sharing divisions, DriveNow and Car2Go respectively, and are apparently in the final stages of negotiations. A deal is expected to be signed in the very near future.
Daimler’s ride sharing platform, Car2Go, is billed as the largest one-way car sharing service, with some 14,000 cars servicing 26 cities across three continents. In comparison, BMW’s service DriveNow operates a fleet of (just) 6,000 vehicles, but concentrated on just 9 major European cities.
Historically, Daimler and BMW have been fierce rivals, but their unified approach suggests that while they enjoy great success in their various markets, the combined ride-sharing platform could lead to the introduction of a ride-hailing service. The imminence of the merger was broken to Reuters by a senior executive from one of the companies.
Uber and Lyft, in that regard, have gone relatively uncontested. Car-sharing, where you rent a car for a short term and drop it off in a designated zone or space, used to be considered as the future of motoring and mobility, up until ride-sharing apps came around and stole the spotlight. The Daimler and BMW merger may be the beginning of a renewed effort to expand the reach of Car2Go and DriveNow, or maybe perhaps be a move towards a ride-hailing system that could potentially eclipse the American startups.
What do you think about this development? Would a BMW-Daimler merged ride-sharing service pose a serious threat to the ride-hailing services so many of us use? Let us know in the comments below.
Stay tuned to CarShowroom for more updates as they come.
