It’s grave times out there for the auto industry. I mean, something must be going wrong, because BMW and Mercedes-Benz are working together. All that and more on The Morning Shift for October 16, 2018.
ReachNow was BMW’s attempt at launching a car sharing service in Brooklyn to rival Mercedes-Benz’s Car2Go and the independent ZipCar. I saw “was,” because it is now (mostly) dead with the service saying it is “pivoting” from 250 free-floating cars to six cars. All parked in one apartment building.
Good morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Much of the time in America, when you see a Smart Fortwo zipping around your city, it’s in the blue-and-white livery of Car2Go. The Daimler-owned car-sharing service has been around in this country since 2010, and it’s long relied solely on the tiny Smart and their ease of parking as a selling point for city drivers…
A man in San Francisco had his Mini Cooper stolen for the second time in only two days. After trying to get the police to go after the thief, the man just went ahead and tracked the perp down on his own using a phone app. Here’s the extremely nerve-wracking livestream of that quest for the carjacked Mini Cooper.
Daimler’s car-sharing subsidiary car2go, known for its fleet of tiny blue and white Smart ForTwos, is jazzing things up a bit with an announcement Monday that its members will soon have access to a fleet of Mercedes CLA sedans and GLA crossovers. At last, members won’t be limited to just the tiny two-seat city cars…
Imagine you are walking past that swanky Cadillac dealership and you see the new CT6 you’ve been hearing about. And then you see salesmen inside leering at you, ears perked up, ready to pounce. You hurry away, intent on avoiding the dealership interaction, but you’re still curious about the Cadillac. What do you do to…
Like Airbnb, Turo is a peer-to-peer car-sharing service that lets people rent their cars out to others. And I mean any car. Is it wise to allow a total stranger to rent your nice and good car? I say absolutely not! But for those who are willing to try, there’s a shocking amount of interesting, decent things to rent.
Car sharing companies like ZipCar and Cars2Go are staples in cities over the world. They address a need, common in many large urban areas, for on-demand occasional car use, all without the hassles of traditional car rental. As of last year, car sharing is a $400 million industry in the U.S. alone. It’s a good idea.…
Last week I was in Berlin, avoiding being creepily spoon-fed at the Lynk & Co launch event, where I learned that new Volvo/Geely car brand Lynk & Co wants to make it easy for people to take your car from you. Now they have a video dramatizing how it’s supposed to go down.
While “car companies are becoming tech companies,” Jaguar Land Rover is taking a slightly different tack and firing up a wholly-owned “startup” of about 30 people specifically assigned to figure out to how to sell people cars as potentially shareable transportation solutions.
Believe it or not, Toronto doesn’t let cars from the Car2Go car-sharing service park on the streets. The company has spent the past few years trying to convince the city to allow on-street parking for the Smart cars. The city has basically told them to pound sand, so now Car2Go is basically telling the city to do the…
The Ultimate Driving Machine is combining “yuppie class” with the hipster “sharing economy” in the traditionally progressive Seattle area. BMW will offer customers of its new car-sharing service the use of 370 BMWs and Minis, with plans to expand throughout the United States.
Car sharing has been around for a while but most of the big players require you to pay a membership fee, which can be hard to swallow if you’re unsure about trying the service. Not so with General Motors’ new ridesharing service Maven. Maven will loan you a GM vehicle for as low as $6 an hour, no commitment necessary.
Next time someone asks to borrow your car, think hard before saying Yes. I hate to be all lawyer on you here but people lending their car to someone have been successfully sued for damages or gone to prison for life. Rare? Yes. But scary nonetheless.
One of my biggest regrets from last year's LA Auto Show is that I didn't get to cruise around in the Toyota i-Road, because it looks like just an insane amount of fun. Now I'm wishing I live in Tokyo, because they're about to get the i-Road for a new car sharing project.
Apple probably isn't getting into the car business. At least not in the way we know it today. It's getting into the mobility business, where you dial up a ride on your smartphone, Uber-style, get to where you're going and move on with your life. No monthly payments, no insurance, no maintenance and repairs. That's…
Parking in most major cities – and San Francisco, in particular – sucks. More often then not, when the wife and I head into the city for a night out, we park somewhere cheap and Uber our way around. It's both idiotic and costly, but it beats circling for a space for 45 minutes and then walking 10 blocks. That's why…
Personally, I think car sharing is a really cool idea. Especially on college campuses where parking is hard to find, congestion is a fact of life, and alcohol often flows too freely. You'll also find a bunch of elitist douchebags—and it seems like some of them don't like the idea of car sharing. Probably because…
Germany's ban on car service Uber has been lifted. That means that drunk study abroad students in Munich for Oktoberfest can use their phones to get a ride home, just like they would in America.
