New car sharing concept started by Sixt

[YorkshireLad6 7,152]

Sixt (in collaboration with BMW and Mini) have started a new "car sharing" service in Munich this week - called DriveNow

 

The procedure is very straightforward. Once you have registered as a customer (for a one-time fee of 29€ - no other recurring costs) and received your DriveNow ID you can select any DriveNow vehicle randomly parked in Munich (on the street or in registered parking lots) - the map on the homepage shows current vehicle locations in realtime. There is a choice of BMW 1 series, Mini Cooper and Mini Cabrio. You can either reserve the vehicle on the web, using a smartphone, by telephone or simply go to the vehicle and drive it away, having authorised yourself on the in-car reader using your ID card. You simply pay 29cents/minute (so 17.40€/hour) to use the vehicle or 10cents/minute (6€/hour) when parked until you drop it (any legal street parking or parking place in the city) and de-register yourself. The per-minute costs include all fuel, insurance, cleaning and parking costs. You can only collect and drop off a car within Munich city but you can drive anywhere you want once you've reserved one - clearly long-distance drives are not anticipated as they'd get very expensive - this is a city and environs scheme for short trips from A to B inside or close by the city boundaries. Approximately 300 vehicles are distributed around the city, and as I write this around 60 of them are currently available to "rent"

 

It's an expensive way to rent a car for any long period, but a convenient way for city dwellers to get around and across town on their "own" 4 wheels or if they want to avoid public transport for any reason.

[Ami_in_Munich 127]

Eh, last time we had such a terrible experience with Sixt's customer service that we swore never to use them again. And based on the prices of their car-sharing service, I doubt our vow will be hard to keep. Anyway, we use StattAuto for car-sharing here in Munich and it's muuuuch less expensive (ok, we're not renting BMWs to go to Real, but the cars are nice and properly maintained.)

[Eleanor Rigby 1,934]

We use this service and can not praise it highly enough!

 

We have our own car but we use it to go out in the evenings instead of using a taxi.

On Saturday it cost us €2,80 from our place near Arabellapark to drive to Neuhausen. You can park it anywhere (legal) for free so it's easy to find parking even in busy areas.

In the end, OG decided not to drink so we were able to drive the car home as well but if he had decided to drink we could have just left it where we parked it and taken a taxi home.

[YorkshireLad6 7,152]

I agree that DriveNow is not cheap, but the concept and pricing is quite different from Stattauto, where you have to deposit 500€ to join, pay 7€/month to stay a member and pay from around 1.90€/hour PLUS 19cents/km when you take a car. In the city, where driving a kilometre can take as long as a minute, then 29cents/min is not sooooooooo bad, with the advantage that you can literally collect and drop the DriveNow car, wherever you want. The 84€ a year charge to Stattauto (before you even take a car) is enough for almost 5 hours of DriveNow driving.

[Elfenstar 1,676]

Daimler has a similar program called CarToGo. They've only rolled out to 4 locations (including 2 in North America, Austin being one of them that is why I know about this program ), Ulm and Hamburg in Germany.

[Small Town Boy 6,672]

There is another way to join Stattauto without all the charges: via Deutsche Bahn Carsharing. There is only a one-off joining fee of €50 (waived for Bahncard holders) and no annual fee or deposit. You generally use the same vehicles as through Stattauto. The pricing is however slightly different again.

 

But the Sixt pricing system is completely different and ideal if you want to travel a long distance in a short period of time, or for literally just a few minutes (minimum time with DB is 30 minutes). A daily/weekly rate would be good but presumably they fear this will eat into their regular business. It's good to have a variety of options to choose from though and it hopefully will make more people realise that buying a car and paying for all the associated costs (insurance, tax, parking space, MOT etc.) is nowadays unnecessary except for the heaviest users.

[CincyInDE 3,311]

interesting. what keeps me from signing up for Stattauto is the monthly maintenance fee. this might be the answer, although having a van would be nice.

[rheinmain 6]

It sounds like an interesting " fractional ownership " concept.

 

But are there any legal issues that arise from a commercial enterprise parking its " inventory " around the city in taking up already precious public parking spaces ? What would happen if someone started a coin-operated rubbish collection service and parked skips on every street corner ? Or filled an entire public bicycle rack with those " advert bikes " ?

 

Also, who is responsible for any parking fines after one stops the meter (no parking 8-5 o'clock weekdays, but I parked it at 7:59) ?

 

I am simply curious.

[pike 323]

 

On Saturday it cost us €2,80 from our place near Arabellapark to drive to Neuhausen. You can park it anywhere (legal) for free so it's easy to find parking even in busy areas.

In the end, OG decided not to drink so we were able to drive the car home as well but if he had decided to drink we could have just left it where we parked it and taken a taxi home.

 

Did you also pay for the 'idle' time, or were you simply lucky and the car was still there when you were ready to leave? Presumably the return cost €2,80 also?

[Freising 503]

 

Also, who is responsible for any parking fines after one stops the meter (no parking 8-5 o'clock weekdays, but I parked it at 7:59) ?

 

I just read an article in Spiegel Online (german) about the Car2Go experience. Apparently they pay the fines if for example the time on the parking meter runs out. I guess they would still charge you, if you left the car in a non-parking zone. Dont know if this applies to Sixt too.

[kathie 1,006]

 

Did you also pay for the 'idle' time, or were you simply lucky and the car was still there when you were ready to leave? Presumably the return cost €2,80 also?

 

 

As far as I know, they were just lucky that the car was still there. However, even if it hadn't been, when OG and ER showed us the app, there were at least another 2 cars within walking distance.

[exquitius 277]

 

It sounds like an interesting " fractional ownership " concept.

 

But are there any legal issues that arise from a commercial enterprise parking its " inventory " around the city in taking up already precious public parking spaces ? What would happen if someone started a coin-operated rubbish collection service and parked skips on every street corner ? Or filled an entire public bicycle rack with those " advert bikes " ?

 

Also, who is responsible for any parking fines after one stops the meter (no parking 8-5 o'clock weekdays, but I parked it at 7:59) ?

 

I am simply curious.

 

very simple - there are no parking tickets!

 

just like residents have a permit from the city council to park in on street car parking spaces for a fixed fee per year, so do the BMW car share cars BUT they can park in all areas rather than just in a specific locality.

 

Well, that was what was proposed when this scheme was first announced last year so you'd presume that it has come to pass. BMW press releases from this March indeed mentioned that all street parking charges are included as well as some spaces in city centre car parks.

[DanHessen 2,964]

Have the prostitutes discovered this yet?

[Small Town Boy 6,672]

 

this might be the answer, although having a van would be nice.

 

That's the beauty of carsharing: you can choose the vehicle according to need. A small car for going shopping, a large car for a longer trip, a van for buying furniture, a minibus for groups. Even the Freising scheme has all these vehicle types to choose from (along with trailers and other equipment) so I'm sure the much larger Munich one does as well.

[Gen 2,454]

 

interesting. what keeps me from signing up for Stattauto is the monthly maintenance fee. this might be the answer, although having a van would be nice.

 

7 euros a month is too much?

 

Yes, STATTAUTO has vans, with or without seats for passengers.

 

STATTAUTO English information

STATTAUTO on the TT wiki which needs to be reformatted due to the Wiki switch, sigh.

 

As the new thing has no monthly fee, I see no reason not to do both. It will be very interesting to see how these models coexist.

 

Oh I'd need a new phone though, mine can't load apps like that...

[CincyInDE 3,311]

 

7 euros a month is too much?

 

...

 

when wouldn't use the service but four times a year, yes. I already pay enough for shit I don't use.