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BMW to Broaden Car-Sharing Venture
BMW AG says the car-sharing business it has been testing in four German cities for two years is ready to prove it can turn a profit.
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BMW AG says the car-sharing business it has been testing in four German cities for two years is ready to prove it can turn a profit.
The DriveNow GmbH partnership with rental car company Sixt AG allows customers rent vehicles by the minute. The venture tells Bloomberg News it will add only one more location in Germany and one elsewhere in Europe this year.
More important, says Managing Director Andreas Schaaf, is demonstrating the business case for the service. He notes there is little economy of scale when adding venues, so he's looking for profitability on a city-by-city basis.
Schaaf says DriveNow should break even in 2014. That's the same year Daimler AG's rival "car2go" service hopes to become profitable. Daimler said earlier this week that its one-way rental service, which features a fleet of two-passenger ForTwo city cars, already turns a profit in three of the 18 cities where it operates.
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