December 2015

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Welcome to the December edition of our Global Carsharing Update.

Please enjoy reading our interview with Ms. Uta Kurz of the German operator Stadtmobil Südbaden AG, we asked about her experiences after starting a co-operation with an utility company.

A sad development is the bankruptcy of CiteeCar. Have a look at our commentary and feel free to tell us what you think!

Season's greetings and a happy new year,
Dr. Bodo Schwieger
CEO team red

Content: Congratulations! - Operators News - Commentary - 3 questions for... - Conferences and Research

Congratulations!

cambio celebrates 25 years of carsharing

What started 25 years ago as a grass-roots initiative for fewer cars in the city, has now evolved into a modern service business. cambio CarSharing offers a clever and affordable alternative to a private car. An urban life-style of sustainability and mobility has never been easier! cambio customers have access to more than 4.300 vehicles in 200 cities throughout Germany and Belgium.
More info

Operators News

CiteeCar in bankruptcy (Germany)
The low-cost station-based German operator, currently in four regions, keeps running in December but its future is unclear.
Read more

Commentary - The expert's view:
CiteeCar started three years ago, served many German cities with several hundred Kia Rios - and now files for bankruptcy. Growth rates have never been where market forecasts said they would be. Financed with venture capital (coming from Skype-venturist Mangrove) CiteeCar's boss Bill Jones expected "the market to explode". But customer growth did not take CiteeCar to the levels where the "low-cost carsharing" needed to be to refinance the investments. Was it a bad service? No, it wasn't as I can tell from experience. Was it bad luck? No, as the carsharing market all around them continued to grow, making Germany's top-rated operators Stadtmobil and cambio look relaxed into the future. Maybe it was about expectations driven by market forecasts which we all read in the newspapers and liked to believe. However round trip carsharing does not seem to be the market with explosive growth. It makes sense when we look at whom carsharing is serving: people whose transportation habits take a long time to change. Carsharing seems to grow with the education of the people and their willingness to change their lifestyles - and that does not go fast. I think we need to be more relaxed about growth rates. Promising too much and hence losing money does not make the market look attractive for investors.
(Dr. Bodo Schwieger)

1,000 Kandi K10 EVs for Tianjin (China)
The Kandi carsharing program will launch 1,000 of its electric vehicles in Tianjin, the fourth most populated city in China, by the end of the year.
Read more

New EV carsharing service in Turin (Italy)
“Blue Torino” will be the new electric service in Turin, planning to have 400 vehicles by 2017. The French company Blue Solution will be in charge of operations.
Read more

New corporate carsharing by LeasePlan (Worldwide)
SwopCar is the name of the new corporate carsharing plan offered by the fleet management company LeasePlan. First piloted in the Netherlands and Luxembourg, it will be deployed globally in the coming months.
Read more

Co-Wheels car club introduced 20 EV in Scotland (UK)
Co-Wheels, the UK's only national independent pay-as-you-go car hire operator, introduced the Renault Zoe to a number of new sites in Scotland this year, the most recent being in Aberdeen, Dumfries and Dundee.
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3 questions for...

Ms. Uta Kurz
Stadtmobil Südbaden AG
www.stadtmobil-suedbaden.de

Stadtmobil Südbaden cooperates with an electricity supplier. How strong is this cooperation and which are your benefits as a carsharing operator?

In 2014 Stadtmobil Südbaden AG and the company NaturEnergie (part of Energiedienst Holding AG) founded my-e-car GmbH, a carsharing service with electric vehicles. The electricity supplier brings its expertise in the field of charging infrastructure and electric mobility, while Stadtmobil contributes with its years-long experience as carsharing operator.
We at Stadtmobil are convinced that e-mobility will become more and more important in the next years and its implementation will help to achive our objective of influencing sustainable mobility. NaturEnergie produces electricity from water power, what makes it an ideal partner in reaching our sustainable aims. In this perspective, for the establishment of e-carsharing, a good cooperation between electricity suppliers and carsharing services providers is crucial.

You have been already established in the market for many years. How are you perceived by the local authorities? Do they support you?

Local authorities have recognized already for some time that carsharing can alleviate parking problems, in particular in densely built urban areas, and contribute to a better quality of life, because many people can avoid an expensive car ownership.
In our area we have a broad support of local authorities. The city of Offenburg has installed mobility stations and, with the mobility card EinfachMobil, residents can easily use the public transport, carsharing (conventional and electric vehicles) and bikes. Similar mobility stations have been installed also in Lörrach. The city of Freiburg has gone one step further and has made available in public areas 446 carsharing parking slots, which can be gradually rented by the operators in the next few years. This is an unique process in Germany.

What is your most important management task in the next 12 months?

Our brand my-e-car is actually our major challenge. It is always an exciting journey, full of surprises and unexpected challenges, when companies with different cultures and expertise in different fields enter the unknown territory.

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Conferences and Research

team red’s Global Carsharing Operators Report 2015 is here!
team red’s annual report on carsharing business, based on a comprehensive database of operators has just been released. If you are interested in receiving a free copy, please contact us by email.

Jan. 2016: TRB Annual Meeting
The Transportation Research Board (TRB) 95th Annual Meeting will be held January 10–14, 2016, in Washington, D.C. (USA). team red will be attending and presenting the results of its Carsharing Evaluation Project in Munich. Check the carsharing session event detail here.

Mar. 2016: City Car Summit
This event will bring automakers, suppliers, car-share operators and technology providers together to engineer the next generation of urban mobility on March 15–16, 2016 in Berlin (Germany).
Read more...

Jun. 2016: mobil.TUM 2016 – Transforming Urban Mobility
mobil.TUM 2016 will be held in Munich (Germany) on June 1-2, 2016. The call for papers is open now.
Read more...

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