If you see a Mini and a SmartForTwo racing down the street in Berlin, there's a reason.
Parent companies Daimler and BMW are competing for car-sharing customers in the German capital and now offer car-sharing by the minute, said Bloomberg News. When you're being charged in 60-second increments, it's inclined to speed the plow.
Daimler's Car2Go and BMW's DriveNow charge 29 cents a minute (or about $17 an hour) to rent their SmartForTwos, BMW 1-series sedans and Minis. Daimler has 1,000 ForTwos to share in Berlin, while BMW has 500 vehicles as part of its service. The two German automakers are competing in a car-sharing market that's expected to got through the roof in next few years. The number of European car-sharing users is ex[ected to jump to 15 million in 2020 from 700,000 last year, according to analyists Frost & Sullivan.
BMW launched DriveNow last year with Sixt AG, and the service has 9,500 subscribers in Berlin, Bloomberg said. Daimler launched its 1,000-vehicle car-sharing fleet in Berlin in April.––Paul Duchene
