Two of the companies born in Daimler’s mobility ecosystem, Sharenow and Freenow, already work together. The application to order taxis throughout Europe already allows you to reserve rental cars by the minute for trips around the city.
Free Now is an online taxi and mobility service provider. Its purpose is that users can quickly access different forms of mobility depending on their needs. As of Wednesday, Free Now has integrated with Share Now.
That means that Share Now’s fleet of 600 rental vehicles by the minute can now be reserved through the Free Now mobile app, just like the Share Now app. In other words, simplifies the booking process a bit more, for convenience and time savings.
Back in February, both Free Now and Share Now agreed to integrate their platforms and add cars from the second to the first. It is a logical step, since both companies are owned by them, Daimler Y BMW.
Do not confuse Free Now with Free2Move, which is the mobility brand of STELLANTIS, previously of the PSA Group, where another mobility company, emov, had been integrated. In fact, Share Now was previously known as car2go and Drive Now. In turn, Free Now was previously known as mytaxi (with Greek “y”).
The integration of Share Now cars into Free Now occurred first in the German and French markets. This time the integration has been carried out in Spain, where to the smart EQ fortwo and EQ forfour of Madrid are added new Fiat 500e recently incorporated. Yes, Fiat belongs to STELLANTIS, which does not participate in Share Now.
In this way, Free Now users You can order a taxi, electric scooters and cars from Share Now with the same application. The number of electric vehicles will be progressively increased, until in 2030 an activity in principle free of emissions will be achieved and decarbonized.
Drive Now, another mobility company, was integrated into Share Now
Jaime Rodríguez de Santiago, general director of Free Now in Spain, declared that there is a change in mentality in the way citizens move. The goal is to move in a “More agile, comfortable and safe”, which does not always imply using a private vehicle, especially in large cities.
For manufacturers this change in mentality on the one hand can have a negative impact on sales, the private vehicle is no longer so necessary, especially if it is used little, but it represents a new business opportunity: mobility. Customers demand mobility services, not necessarily cars.
Users demand more simplicity, they prefer to have everything in the same mobile app
In recent years we have experienced a boom in multimodality, since it not only covers cars, taxis or public transport. Rental vehicles by the minute (cars, motorcycles or scooters), bicycles, etc. have been added. All this has been facilitated by technology, and with the convenience of carrying a mobile in your pocket, you don’t need cash or carry cards.
Speaking of prices, the smart EQ fortwo have a rate of 0.19 euros / minute, which becomes 13.99 euros at two hours, or 49.99 euros per day. The smart EQ forfour and Fiat 500e cost a little more, 0.21 euros / minute, or 15.99 euros for two hours (promotionally, in the 500e it is 6 euros), or 59.99 for the whole day.
Share Now has a base of 280,000 users in Madrid, which does not mean that they are all active, but that they are registered. Worldwide, Share Now has three million users and has a fleet of vehicles in 16 cities. In total, we are talking about 11,000 vehicles, of which 2,900 are battery-electric. According to the company, each of these cars avoids the circulation of 20 private vehicles.
Several auto companies have invested capital in these types of initiatives. Without going any further, in addition to STELLANTIS’s Free2Move, we can also highlight Zity (Renault and Ferrovial) or WiBLE (Kia and Repsol). The fact that there are such large companies behind guarantees their viability in the short term, even if they do not necessarily give benefits.