BMW Expands Car-Sharing Business

BMW AG is expanding its ReachNow car-sharing business in the U.S. to include peer-to-peer, on-campus, ride-hailing and traditional rental service options.

ReachNow Ride is a ride-hailing program similar to Lyft and Uber. Users can request a driver and set personal options, such as pre-selecting a radio station or requesting silence for the ride. The pilot program will start in Seattle.

ReachNow Fleet Solutions is a station-based car-sharing plan for users at specific locations. Its initial test will be limited to residents of certain apartment buildings in Manhattan.

ReachNow Share allows participants to rent out their own 2017 Mini cars for a minimum period of two days. The program will be launched in Seattle next month. A fourth program, ReachNow Reserve, allows users to rent specific vehicles for several days or weeks and have the vehicle delivered directly to their location.

All services are accessed via the ReachNow smartphone app, which was developed and operated by San Francisco-based Ridecell Inc. There currently are 32,000 ReachNow members in Seattle and Portland.

BMW will waive the usual $39 membership fee for a short time. Per-minute charges temporarily will be reduced from 49 cents to 41 cents.

ReachNow replaced the previous DriveNow program that was discontinued last year after an unsuccessful three-year trial in San Francisco. The base program was a short-term fleet-owned rental service in which users pick up and later leave vehicles from any legal parking space in the city for free—which San Francisco didn’t allow. The program was later expanded to Portland with a total fleet of 760 vehicles and is now being expanded to New York City with more than 1,000 vehicles.