Germany-based rental car company Sixt SE announced its DriveNow car-sharing venture with BMW has exceeded expectations, with profits to match.
Autoblog reports DriveNow’s success is linked to cities where the service has been in operation for at least a year, with new subscriptions coming online in a manner that completely caught CEO Erich Sixt off-guard:
We’ve been surprised about the explosion of new subscriptions, which has helped boost revenue. We didn’t expect such a dramatic rise in membership.
DriveNow, operating in five German cities and San Francisco, saw its membership jump from 215,000 at the end of 2013, to 300,000 at present. However, COO Julian zu Putlitz expects the service — which allows members to rent BMW’s X1 and 1 Series vehicles, as well as models from MINI — to see a “small-to-medium, single-digit” million-euro loss in 2014 due to startup costs.
As for the future, Sixt and BMW are in talks to expand DriveNow to 25 locations in Europe and the United States within the next five years.
Great news, now we all can be douche bag pricks by the day.
Is BMW the new whored out Bose speaker system?
Every day a sucker is born.
What has this comment to do with Sixt carsharing?
Who are you two so angry?
Sounds good. BMW experience minus the soul crushing depreciation and frequent shop visits. Sign me up!
Wifey and I are going for a road trip this weekend to visit some friends… Z only seats two and her Rabbit sucks. Would be nice to have something like a 6 Gran Coupe for the weekend.
But the article says that only X1s and 1s are for rent? I would think that a big part of the allure is to rent higher end BMWs, not just the entry level models.
I think the incentive for BMW to participate is to give potential customers an opportunity for an extended test drive in a model they might actually buy. A sprinkling of 6 Gran Coupes would be cool, but most of the fleet should be volume models.
Pretty sure most BMW drivers are on a subsidized lease so the soul crushing depreciation isn’t an issue. Come to think of it, I’ve never actually known anybody who bought a new BMW outright instead of leasing, the lease deals are usually very heavily subsidized by BMW.
The 6 Coupe is so sexy looking. It’s the only thing I would even consider if someone said “Hey you gotta buy a BMW.”
And obviously they would be telling me that through a giant Bluetooth headset as I adjusted my Jaeger-lecoultre watch.