Drive, don’t own!

Car2Go is a perfect example for a circular service. Instead of purchasing a car, the user purchases the permission to use the car. The user only pays for the time driven and doesn’t have to worry about maintenance, repair or the devaluation of the car itself.

How does it work?

It is so easy to use and a more convenient way to travel in cities. You can drive into town, park for free, drink a beer and get a taxi back. No walking into town the next day to pick up the car again. I can start walking and when I feel tired take a car and park it directly in front of my house.

I think Car2Go is a beautiful example how rethinking our ownership models can result in a Win-Win-Situation for everyone.

A similar service company is called DriveNow from BMW I, Mini and Sixt.

It works quite similar, with an additional little trick. To save on staff, DriveNow offers 30 free minutes for refueling the car if the fuel level is under 25% and over 90% when finishing the own journey. The user obviously doesn’t have to pay for the refueling, but uses a tank card inside the car, which is being activated using a PIN. This creates an incentive to drive the car to a fuel station. The fuel level of each car can be checked online. A friend used to look for cars, which had a fuel level below 90%, refueled them and gained 30 free minutes to drive. He did this so often, that he rarely paid for driving the cars. And with more people like him, most cars have over 90% of fuel and are ready to go, without DriveNow having to pay additional staff.