BMW launches DriveNow car share scheme

The notion of private car ownership is under attack from a new generation of app-enabled sharing schemes – a vanguard being led by BMW and its DriveNow project.

The German car maker has teamed up with rental giant Sixt to revolutionise the way city folk get about and to “make mobility so cheap that only the rich will buy cars”. Just as well then that BMW specialises in the premium end of the car market.

Users of the DriveNow scheme use a mobile phone app to find, unlock and start either a BMW 1 series or MINI car and pay from 32p per minute to drive it.

The main selling point is that users can make one-way journeys – there is no central collection or return point. The London boroughs of Hackney, Haringey and Islington have agreed to allow the cars to be parked in any of their on-street parking spaces.

DriveNow website

Why does BMW want us to share cars?

BMW is a highly aspirational brand – a badge of honour for those who have achieved corporate success, so why on earth is the company involved in a scheme that encourages sharing? The answer lies partly in the estimate that half the world’s population will live in cities by 2050 (and there is unlikely to be the space for private cars), partly because the car share scheme is a powerful marketing opportunity to showcase its cars to a younger audience and partly because the scheme is an excellent application for its electric i3 city car.

Despite the fact that private car ownership is deeply engrained in British culture, there is also a sense that car sharing schemes could grow very quickly. Perhaps even as quickly as a the uptake of mobile phones, which was transformed when phones could be paid for as part of a contract. According to the Frost & Sullivan consultancy, there could be as many as 800,000 car club members within five years in London.

What about outside London?

WhipCar launched in 2010 as a neighbour-to-neighbour car rental service - a mediator between car owners wanting to reduce their running costs and people who want to borrow a car for hours or days at a time. It appeared to be an idea as well suited to those living in the countryside as those in urban areas. Those wishing to offer their car for rent set the price themselves and insurance was taken care off by WhipCar. Unfortunately the scheme failed to gain momentum and has since closed.

Catering to cities across Britain is Zipcar, an international car sharing scheme that allows motorists to use a new car for as little as £6 per hour, a cost that includes insurance and fuel. The company already has hundreds of thousands of customers on its books and expects one in ten of us to forgo the expense and hassle of personal adopt car clubs as our primary mode of transport.

Find out more at zipcar.co.uk and get £20 of free driving credit.