Electric Car-Share for Laguna Beach

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. 

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

3D-Printed YoYo

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