Car sharing. The Volkswagen brand will be implementing its WE customer platform to begin rolling out various vehicle-on-demand services, in particular car sharing, in Germany during 2019 and extending to major cities in Europe, North America and Asia as early as 2020.
Volkswagen Brand Board Member for Sales, Jürgen Stackmann, announced: ‘We are convinced that the car sharing market still has potential. That is why we are entering this market with a holistic single-source concept covering all mobility needs from the short journey that takes just a few minutes to the long vacation trip. Our vehicle-on-demand fleets will consist entirely of electric cars, and will therefore provide zero-emission, sustainable mobility. That is an intelligent way to relieve the strain on urban areas’.
Apart from car sharing, vehicle-on- demand services can also include what are known as micro-mobility solutions. Volkswagen recently presented progressive e-mobile solutions for urban centers with the I.D. Cityskater and the I.D. Street-mate study. Going forward, vehicle-on-demand services from the WE/We customer platform, which could also be used to provide services such as a parking app or location based vouchering, are also designed to complement the mobility solutions offered by MOIA which focusses on ride hailing and pooling services. The vehicle-on-demand services available on the Volkswagen WE platform will be managed by UMI Urban Mobility International GmbH, Berlin (www.urban-mobility.io), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Volkswagen AG led by CEO Philip Reth.
UMI began operating this year with a team of around 30. As Philip Reth commented: ‘Our customers expect an environmentally-friendly fleet that takes them to their destination quickly and at a fair price – and that is exactly the experience we will be delivering.’
