i3 - September/October 2016 - 23

dollar Lyft investment will lead to a network of self-driving
vehicles for on-demand transportation. "We see the future of
personal mobility as connected, seamless and autonomous,"
GM President Dan Ammann says.

PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUG COOMBE

The Leading Edge of Mobility
The largest, fastest-growing car sharing service globally is
car2go, owned by Daimler AG, says Michael Mikos, director
of strategy at car2go NA, LLC in Austin, TX. It was launched
in 2008 and serves 1.9 million users worldwide with 14,500
vehicles in 30 cities.
While car2go is "a pillar for Daimler" in the automaker's
global mobility strategy, "we look at the mobility suite of
options and find ourselves very complementary to public transit
and many of the other mobility services out there," Mikos says.
"People look for the easiest and most flexible way to get somewhere. We want to be one of their top choices."
Another option is Daimler's Moovel Group GmbH, a mobility
services unit that recently launched a U.S. subsidiary, Moovel
NA LLC. "The Moovel Group was the central organizing entity
within Daimler designed to look at new business models,
customer acquisition strategies, and basically where to put the
heart of innovation within the company, particularly with the
central thesis that mobility as a service will be this fabric that
connects everything Daimler can touch," says Nat Parker, CEO
of Moovel NA in Portland, OR. "Moovel was created as the
leading edge of mobility innovation within Daimler Corp."
Moovel founded car2go, acquired MyTaxi - the largest ridesharing service within the European Union and shifted its focus
to transportation, which he calls "the third leg of the stool"
because "public transit shepherds the lion's share of people
in urban transportation networks." In fact, he says increasing urbanization drove Daimler's investment in the growth of
Moovel, along with the growth of the "sharing economy" as
epitomized by Uber, Lyft and Airbnb.
"We can use our existing beachhead in transit payment and
transit routing as a connection point for alternative transport
applications. They can be of our own making like car2go, but
they can also be competitors and collaborators like Lyft or bike
share," Parker says. "There's something of an arms race going
on with the automakers transforming into tech companies and
tech companies beginning to manufacture automobiles. Moovel
is Daimler's answer to how to organize that very disparate
ecosystem."
Moovel NA comprises two separate but complementary business units: Moovel Transit has a mobile ticketing and account
management platform that U.S. cities use along with smart
cards and smartphone apps. RideTap markets a "first mile,
last mile" software toolkit that enables the transit app user to

request a Lyft car or reserve a car2go car for example, to get
from his transit ride to his final destination.
"This draws more users into our network and it draws more
users to our customers, which are cities and transit operators
themselves," Parker says. RideTap's technology can be integrated in any third party. Thus, a restaurant reservations app
could provide all the transportation options in the RideTap
network to get the user to his next meal. Both Moovel Transit
and RideTap will expand worldwide this year.
BMW is in the car sharing business, too. Its ReachNow
service launched with an initial fleet of 370 vehicles including BMW's i3 EV and 3 Series sedan, and the MINI Cooper.
After one month, it attracted more than 13,000 new members.
BMW's plans call for expansion to three more cities this year,
then ultimately to 10 cities in North America. This is the successor to DriveNow, BMW's car sharing service in Europe that
was piloted in the U.S.
ReachNow includes elements of ridesharing, as well.
Features of the service include the option to book a car with
a chauffeur; request a car to be delivered to a location at a
specific time; and to extend the time a car is borrowed like a
car rental. Members who own MINI Coopers can also use the
service to rent out their personal vehicles to ReachNow when
the vehicles would otherwise stay parked. BMW plans to
offer companies and residential complexes a fleet of ReachNow
vehicles stationed at their locations for easy access by employees and residents.
"We're not in the transportation business," says Ludwig
Willisch, CEO and president at BMW of North America in
Woodcliff Lake, NJ. "We are in the business of premium mobility and that includes car sharing."
Most people use their cars only a fraction of the time each
month, and are motivated to both share a vehicle and not pay
for it sitting idle, Willisch says. "Things are changing in the
sense that people will have the opportunity of using a car for
even the shortest period of time when they want to. It doesn't
have to be a six-month lease. It can be a usage for 15 minutes."
In the next five years, "people will move to pay for use and we
have to be mindful of that, and offer services that cater to those
needs. All automakers must," Willisch adds.
"People talk about car sharing, they talk about electrification
and they talk about driverless cars. But they don't see how it all
fits together in bringing that service dimension to transportation," says ABI's Bonte.
The service dimension is at the core of what's happening
in the industry. He says, "You can see how everything comes
together in providing smart mobility as a service. It's more
than just a gadget, it's more than just a feature. It's going to
transform an entire industry."
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to change more than it has in the past 50.
C TA . t e c h / i 3

- Annalisa Bluhm,
Maven LLC

http://cta.tech/i3

i3 - September/October 2016

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