Copenhagen's New All-Electric Public Carsharing Programming

dkatana writes: Residents in Copenhagen have a new all-electric, free-floating, carsharing service. DriveNow is launching 400 brand new BMW i3 electric cars in the Danish city. The service is one-way, and metered by the minute. The big news is that residents can sign-up on the spot taking a picture of their drivers' license and a selfie and use their public transport accounts to pay. There will be a car available every 300 meters, the same distance as bus stops. The cost will be 3.50 kroner ($0.52) per minute driven. If members decide to park the car for a few minutes continuing the rental, those stationary minutes are charged at 2.5 kroner ($0.37). The maximum charge per hour is capped at 190 kroner ($28.50). There is no annual fee.

Comments

Or for slightly less per month

[tompaulco]

Or for slightly less per month based on average monthly usage, you could buy, insure and fuel an I3 and when you got tired of it, you could sell it and get some money back.

Re:Or for slightly less per month

[kamapuaa]

It's not intended to completely replace cars for every resident of Copenhagen (with a population far greater than 400). It's surely intended as an occasional thing for people who don't have a car, or took public transportation into the city center.

Re:Or for slightly less per month

[hey!]

Depends on how much you use the car. Drive a brand new car off the lot to the used car dealer across the street, and you'll find the car is now worth about half what you paid for it. It takes a lot of 3.5 krona minutes to make that instantaneous depreciation seem attractive.

Now if you're like most suburban-dwelling American, you spend hours a day in your car, so it just makes sense to buy it, or lease it long-term. But if you lived and worked in Manhattan you'd be nuts to own a car for transportation unless you were a gazillionaire. Just the cost of keeping the car would exceed the cost of renting one on the rare occasions you'd need it.

I suppose most people in Copenhagen are in the same boat. It's far more walkable than most American cities and enjoys excellent bicycle and pedestrian public transit infrastructure. But every so often you and several of your friends might want to take a trip that's a little inconvenient to take by transit. If that's every day several times a day then sure, buy a car. But if it's only occasionally then it doesn't make sense to have a car sitting and depreciating in a garage somewhere.

Re:Or for slightly less per month

[quenda]

Or for slightly less per month based on average monthly usage, you could buy, insure and fuel an I3

I see. Its a good thing Copenhagen has plentiful free parking! (sarcasm)
I think the real question is, how do they compare to taxis? These are not going to replace private cars, though it might be one part of the answer for people in the inner city.

Re:Or for slightly less per month

[ShanghaiBill]

At $30/hr it sure doesn't sound like a big market.

It is cheaper than a taxi, and cheaper than Uber, and way less hassle than a conventional rental car. Those are all multi-billion dollar markets.

Re:Or for slightly less per month

[jopsen]

Or for slightly less per month based on average monthly usage, you could buy, insure and fuel an I3 and when you got tired of it, you could sell it and get some money back.

Not in Denmark... 2 / 3 of car prices in Denmark are taxes... Energy is also more expensive..

Re:Or for slightly less per month

[ShanghaiBill]

It's surely intended as an occasional thing for people who don't have a car, or took public transportation into the city center.

Exactly. This is not for people that drive every day. My house has three drivers (me, my wife, and my daughter). We also have three cars. 90% of the time we could get by with just one car. 99% of the time, we could get by with two. So we have the 3rd car "just in case". If these "rent-by-the-hour" cars were available within 300 meters of my house, I would definitely sell the 3rd car, and maybe even the 2nd.

Re:Or for slightly less per month

[GNious]

Leasing a BMW i3, cheapest option, in CPH will cost you 211870 DKR for 36 months, or 31636.55 USD. This comes to about 0.136 DKR/minute, vs 3.50 DKR/minute for the rental.
The difference is 25.7 times, or, for every 25.7 minute you have the lease car, you can drive the above solution for 1 minute, or, 6.5 hours of driving per week.

If you only need it for odd trips once or twice a week, which, since you're living in a modern city (CPH) is more than likely, the 3.50 DKR/minute is miles cheaper than a lease-option, and still significantly cheaper than buying, insuring, fueling, and maintaining a BMW i3, even if we only look at direct costs, and ignore financing and time spent cleaning and maintaining a leased or bought car.

Note: I didn't see a new-price for a BMW i3 on the BMW website, but a used-car dealer's cheapest option is a 2014 model for 299.885 DKR ...

Re:Or for slightly less per month

[houghi]

Or for slightly less per month based on average monthly usage, you could buy, insure and fuel an I3 and when you got tired of it, you could sell it and get some money back.

Depends on Usage. I do car sharing and as always YMMV (pun intended)
I had a New Beetle that I bought 12 years ago. I cat 1.000EUR for it from the original price of 17.000. So that is say 750EUR per year devaluation.
My insurance was around 900EUR per year, parking was 50 and maintanance was 300 or so a year on avreage. That is 2.000EUR per year.

I now do car sharing. I get my public transport for free (company pays. Not uncommon in Belgium) and I use the car only to do shopping once a week. My bills are between 30 and 50EUR per month. So that would (looking at the top) 600EUR per year. And that includes fuel.

So I gain 1200EUR per year easy AND I have the car that I want.

This is not intended for all time use. This is intended for the occasional user. The website where I work with is www.cambio.be and they have cars in Belgium, some German cities and Ireland. They say that it becomes interesting if you drive less than (I think) 15.000KM.

This is intended for those that do not drive a lot, so no home-work traffic. No holidays (I would then rent a car as I already did before). Short trips and occosial usage.Many will use it as a second car.

As I said, I only use it for shopping. I was before paying for a car (in insurance) for a car that was standing in front of my house.

Do the calculations and you will see if it is interesting for you or not. Look in your area if there are options like www.cambio.be and you light be amazed how many there are. I know I was. (advertising it, because more users will give me more options)

Re:Or for slightly less per month

[zoltanse]

That's what I did when we moved to Berlin/Germany: Sold my car. My wife has the only car in the house.

I have joined two carsharing services in case I need a car - one of them DriveNow as in the article. But that occasion pops up far fewer times than I originally thought.

There is no guarantee to have a car nearby but usually there is one down the street. The iPhone app works great to locate the cars and provides a filter in case I want a specific model (do prefer the Mini).

Copenhagen really is the city of the future

[GreatDrok]

I had the pleasure of spending a couple of weeks in Copenhagen earlier this year. The public transport is excellent, there are separate cycle paths with their own traffic lights everywhere, and now you can rent an electric car if you absolutely need one. We used the train a lot and walked around many Km too. It was easy to rent a car when we did need one but if I lived there it is highly unlikely I would want to own one because the traffic is pretty bad and the public transport offered is excellent. The car is such a dinosaur when it comes to getting around a city.

Re:Copenhagen really is the city of the future

[0123456]

The car is such a dinosaur when it comes to getting around a city.

There is no 'city of the future', because cities will be dinosaurs in a post-industrial age.

every 300m?

[just another AC]

So they park them everywhere evenly to start with, and over time they cluster into groupings. How do they fix that? Will they have a fleet of drivers picking cars up to ensure spread of cars?

Re:every 300m?

[by (1706743)]

I think recall a service (car share? Bike share? Figment of my imagination?) where the price was greatly reduced, or in some way incentivized, if you parked in a specific spot. (Bikes tend to accumulate at the bottom of hills, not the top -- that sort of thing.)

If properly incentivized, I suspect you could get your customers to de-cluster them for you.

Re:every 300m?

[monkeyxpress]

The Velib system in Paris. V+ stations at the top of hills give you 15mins extra free cycle time if you dock the bike at one.

Re:i8 or nothing baby

[ShanghaiBill]

Yep the one car that is uglier than a PT Cruiser.

They chose the i3 for the same reason that US rental car companies use PT Cruisers: No one will steal them.