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Automakers have been expanding outside of their traditional businesses lately. Rather than just focusing on selling more cars, they are investing in car-sharing companies. One such investment is Daimler’s car2go group and according to Daimler, the early returns have been fantastic.
Over the last year, car2go has grown to nearly 3 million customers, rising 30 percent over the previous year. The service is having success on a global scale with Chongquing, China having the largest number of customers at 234,000. Just behind the large Chinese city, there are 219,000 customers in Berlin, Germany and 190,000 customers in Madrid, Spain. Looking stateside, in North America is home to over 1 million car2go users.
The numbers are very encouraging for Daimler. In the last fiscal year, car2go vehicles were rented more than 24 million times. Several cities saw a huge jump in the rental rate including Milan adding 678,000 rentals, Berlin 622,000 rentals and Hamburg 454,000 rentals. Not only has the number of rentals increased but the duration of those rentals is on the rise as well. Since the introduction of car2go packages in September, the average rental duration has jumped by 30 percent. Daimler says that globally there is one car2go vehicle is rented every second. The company has expanded its fleet, adding new Smart and Mercedes-Benz models last year.
Speaking on the runaway success last year Oliver Reppert, CEO of the car2go Group said, “2017 was a really successful year for car2go. We have grown in all areas – number of customers, rental duration and vehicle utilization rate – and in all regions where we operate. And for 2018, all signals point towards further growth.”
The car2go company currently has about 14,000 vehicles in its fleet. They also report a utilization rate of about 38 percent. That means the company has plenty of room to grow without having to significantly increase the number of cars that are available.
