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BMW takes full ownership of DriveNow's car sharing service (updated)
BMW has been synonymous with DriveNow's car sharing service for several years, and today it's cementing that commitmen. The German auto brand has taken full ownership of DriveNow by acquiring Sixt's stake in the company. This gives BMW "all options" for mobility services in the future -- it's free to take the tech-savvy rental platform in whichever direction it likes. For now, business will continue as usual with DriveNow acting as a BMW subsidiary.
BMW launches DriveNow, the 'premium' car sharing service with a Dell Streak on every dash (video)
If you liked the idea of the Car2go service we profiled a few weeks back, Smart fortwos available for rent by the minute with and some pretty fancy tracking apps to help you find them, but maybe you wanted to drive something a little bit bigger, BMW has you covered. Well, assuming "you" are German or at least living in Germany. The company has launched its own car sharing service it calls DriveNow. This one is billed as a "premium" -- though curiously none of the company's truly premium models will be offered. That said, the Minis and 1 Series autos that make up the initial fleet are hardly low-rent, and we'd be utterly shocked if the upcoming i3 didn't get added to the mix down the road too. Usage details are still a little bit scarce, but we do know that each car will have a dash-mounted Dell Streak through which users will log in after unlocking the car doors with an RFID-equipped membership card or even a suitably endowed drivers license. Renting a car costs 29 cents per minute, up to €14.90 (about $21) per hour, and there will be 300 cars available at first starting in the Munich area. If you're not in Munich it's tough cookies for now, but BMW is hoping to have one million members worldwide by 2020. Maybe one of them will be you.
