Volkswagen readies ‘zero-emission’ car-share service for 2019 launch
Volkswagen said it is launching a “zero-emission” car-sharing service called WE next year, a move that could accelerate its battery-powered car production and take on the likes of Uber and Didi in the mobility space.
The VW brand, which makes up about half of revenue for the Volkswagen Group, said it plans to launch the WE service in Germany next year, with an international rollout to begin as early as 2020 “in major cities in Europe, North America and Asia.”
“Our vehicle-on-demand fleets will consist entirely of electric cars, and will therefore provide zero-emission, sustainable mobility,” said Jürgen Stackmann, VW brand boardmember overseeing sales. VW’s first long-range electric car, the ID Neo, will be produced in Zwickau and is scheduled for series production late next year.
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This week, PSA and Renault each said they would soon launch electric car-sharing services in Paris. In March, BMW and Mercedes announced they would team up on all mobility services to ensure they had enough scale to compete.
Finally, a move that actually makes sense. It allows VW to scale up their EV production slowly, which helps them avoid cannibalizing their own ICE sales until they are ready to produce compelling EVs profitably and in large numbers. It keeps their brand relevant, gives them real-world feedback, and most importantly, lets them get away with higher unit costs thanks to much higher utilization rates. Not to mention, break into a new market that already threatens their future revenues. The lack of a supercharging network for inter-city driving is also not crucial for this application, since this is a city-wide service (Berlin, for starters).
All in all, this buys them some more time and helps them smooth the transition to an EV-only company (far in the future).
