The motive for public transit has been known for a while: vehicles
specifically cars, just sit around Laguna most of the day and require public or private parking space. Our Laguna Beach Transit Director Paula Pfaust (retired) tells us the LB Trolley costs $16 per boarding, while the LB Transit Department is planning to buy a new fleet of electric LB Trolleys for $250,000 each. When a transit boarding is FREE, these costs are subsidized by city resources, often state and federal grant funding and municipal bonds. And now due to low ridership some Trolleys no longer serve residential routes.
Meanwhile electric mini car-shares are catching-on in the United States and Europe costing little as 29-cents per minute plus a small membership fee. Maybe electric mini car-shares are a solution for on-demand convenience, low Trolley ridership, and high fleet deployment costs. Car-shares are the perfect amenity for affordable housing in Laguna Beach, after all driving an EV Mini or scooter would be a lot more fun than riding a bus. Here is what makes these mini car-shares attractive.
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Photos: GOOGLE Images |
ITALY: Milan, Turin, Bologna, Florence and Rome / ENJOY by YoYo
"The vehicles have no fixed parking
spaces or stations but can be parked anywhere in the city. The provider
charges the vehicle itself and promises that the vehicles always have a
battery level of at least 30 per cent." That's the plan from Enjoy, but would it work for independent Gen-Z Americans? In car-addicted Laguna Beach? Booking the small electric cars
costs 29-cents a minute, plus a 1-euro start-up fee. Enjoy has deployed more than 3,000 shared vehicles.
GREECE: Greek island of Astypalea / Volkswagen ID.3, ID.4 , ASTYBUS, ASTYGO
Volkswagen Group and the Greek government agreed to establish a “pioneering mobility system” introducing shared electric mobility and rental services with
e-bikes, scooters, and electric cars. In the next step, all commercial
vehicles and official cars, such as police,
ambulances and public sector vehicles, were also to be electrified.
The Astybus system serves small localized communities with micro-fleets of 5 busses with a subscription model. Volkswagen plans to install 'Elli wall box chargers' throughout
the island.
SPAIN: Barcelona / e-Up, SEAT Mó eScooter
After launching its mobility brand Mó in June, Seat is getting its scooters on the road. A fleet of 632 electric scooters is ready for action in Barcelona. Users may jump on via a Smartphone App that follows
a subscription model.
The Spanish Volkswagen subsidiary launched Seat Mó
in June this year but plans to enter the urban mobility segment . The smallest eKickscooter-25
costs 15 euros per week or 40 euros per month, a eKickscooter-65 is 25 euros per week or 75 euros per month. Short-term Mó rentals is 0,26€/minute when in use, and 0,09€/minute when
in Pause mode. The system also allows pay-per-ride. Two
models for Seat will run under the Mó label
as Seat Mó eScooter-125 and Seat Mó kick scooter-65. Described as
“equivalent to 125cc output”, and also the scooter range in kilometers. A pouch at
the
handlebar allows for navigation using your smartphone.
Mo on SEAT Mó
The brand states Low Emission Zone (LEC) in Barcelona at the
beginning of the year had also played a role in the mini-car offering . Seat Mó says “We
are now focusing on launching and establishing the service in
Barcelona. Our city will be our playground for new mobility solutions
before we scale them up for the rest of the world.”
GERMANY: Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Duisburg,
Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Potsdam / MILES, WESHARE
In autumn this year, two new
locations were added: Brussels Belgium and and Ghent in the Netherlands. The MILES fleet currently
consists of over 9,000 vehicles – around 70 per cent of which come from
the Volkswagen Group.
WESHARE
WeShare, operates around
2,000 Volkswagen ID.3 and ID.4 at its Berlin and Hamburg locations,
with a total of more than 200,000 users.
“New mobility services such as car subscription models and car
sharing are enjoying strong demand,” says Dr Christian Dahlheim,
Chairman of the Board of Volkswagen Financial Services AG, holding responsibility for the Volkswagen Group’s core activities
in the field of mobility solutions. “This is a trend in which we would
like to participate more.” Dahlheim said that carsharing is to become
available to an even broader spectrum of customers with a “strong
partner to operate the fleet” and with vehicles from various Volkswagen
Group brands.
"The acquisition represents yet another German carmaker parting with its carsharing business. BMW and Mercedes-Benz already sold their joint car-sharing business Share Now
to the Stellantis mobility subsidiary Free2Move in the summer. Renault
has made turned extra focus to car-sharing services and has made this a
strong target in part of its Mobilize offering."
ITALY: Turin / XEV Yoyo
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3D-Printed YoYo
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The small 3D-printed electric car model Yoyo from the Italian start-up XEV is now in
car-sharing use. Enjoy, Eni’s car-sharing service, is deploying 100
examples of the XEV Yoyo in Turin.
The urban mobility vehicle is a two-seater that is 2.53 metres short
and weighs only 450 kilograms (990 pounds without battery). The finished Yoyo range is up to 150 kilometres (93 miles).
These new cars occupy minimal city space and energy, The
car-sharing offers customers the convenience of ‘free floating’
car sharing that allows rentals to begin and end anywhere within Enjoy’s
coverage area.
USA: New Jersey / ENVOY, BLINK
Envoy developed a car sharing platform and mobile app
that provides electric vehicles as an amenity to apartments, office
buildings and hotels. Envoy offers technology to reserve and access vehicles and
provide maintenance services, chargers, the fleet and analytics. Blink combined existing EV carsharing service with
Envoy’s fleet to
develop an electric carsharing program in New Jersey.
BLINK
In the USA, Blink Mobility announced the expansion of its BlueLA
electric car-sharing program serving Los Angeles with 300 street side EV
charging stations and an increase the car-sharing EV fleet. A Los Angeles City Council vote approved Blink to add 300
street side EV charging stations at an anticipated 60 destinations
across the city. An expansion agreement called BlueLA will deploy 500 EV charging stations at 100 locations across LA and include 300 vehicles- based on utilization rates.
GERMANY & USA: SION EV
The new Sion
electric vehicle can be shared with friends, relatives or neighbours
via the Sono App – when the Sion is launched in
2023. The Sion business model is revealed in the founder's statement: “Our goal is to
become the largest car-sharing platform without owning a single
vehicle,” says Laurin Hahn, CEO and co-founder of Sono Motors.
DALMER AND BMW Share Now
Car-sharing provider Share Now has provided insights into statistics
on the use of electric vehicles in its European car-sharing fleet. The
company now operates 2,900 BMW, Mini, Smart and Fiat electric cars at
four all-electric and four partially electric locations.
What is new is the fact that, since the first electric vehicles were
floated in 2011, Drive Now customers across Europe have driven 200
million kilometers purely on electric power, about
5,000 circumnavigations of the globe. ( for detail see https://www.electrive.com/tag/car-sharing/)
-LS
