LLaunched with great fanfare in the early 2010s, the car-sharing revolution was to sweep away everything in its path. In 2009, Mercedes threw its small Smarts into big cities and set out to conquer America. Two years later, Vincent Bolloré dumped more than a thousand Autolib’ in the streets of Paris.
Thirteen years of losses later, the dream of a new urban mobility has fizzled out. Autolib’ disappeared in 2018, and its replacements, including Mercedes with Car2Go, are struggling. The German manufacturer first merged, in 2019, its activities with those of its competitor BMW (DriveNow) to create Share Now. Shortly after, the new entity withdrew from the United States and the United Kingdom. Finally, on Tuesday May 3, the service was sold to Stellantis, the owner of the Peugeot, Fiat, Chrysler and Citroën brands.
The latter is one of the few major manufacturers to still believe in it. Ford and General Motors have also thrown in the towel. Perhaps because Free2move, the Stellantis service, is one of the few to have emerged from deficits in 2020, thanks to a platform that combines car sharing, car rental and parking spaces. With Share Now, acquired, it seems, for a pittance (just over 100 million euros, according to the FinancialTimes), it will multiply its fleet by five and will be installed in more than fifteen cities around the world. But he will also inherit the company’s 70 million euros in losses in 2020.
Income diversification
The recovery will be long, but the Franco-Italian firm believes in it, despite this lackluster history. Because the subject of income diversification is acute for car manufacturers. If individuals remain attached to their car, fewer and fewer of them can afford it. Helped by shortages, manufacturers have massively shifted to the much more lucrative high-end market, thereby making the second-hand market more expensive.
In large cities, owning a car is becoming rarer. More than 30% of Parisians do not have a car. And it is in this universe of rarity that the number of competitors explodes. This year, Tesla should overtake Renault in turnover, and hundreds of new manufacturers from all countries intend to take advantage of the electricity shortage to shake up the market. Not everyone will find their place in the cozy high-end niche defended by the Germans. Elsewhere, events could well impose car sharing on their own, and it is not stupid that the builders, despite their disappointment, closely follow the course of this Arlesian.