BMW and Daimler join forces on mobility

The BMW Group and Daimler AG are investing more than €1 billion to develop their offerings for car-sharing, ride-hailing, parking, charging and multimodal transport.

The cooperation comprises five joint ventures: REACH NOW for multimodal services, CHARGE NOW for charging, FREE NOW for taxi ride-hailing, PARK NOW for parking and SHARE NOW for car-sharing.

REACH NOW offers more than 6.7 million users simple, direct access to a range of mobility services through a single multimodal platform. The REACH NOW apps will offer a range of options for getting from A to B, allowing users to book and pay directly for public transport and various other mobility options, such as car-sharing, ride-hailing and bike rentals. REACH NOW will be managed by Daniela Gerd tom Markotten as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), with Johannes Prantl as Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

CHARGE NOW is a service by Digital Charging Solutions GmbH (DCS), which makes over 100,000 charge points across 25 countries, quick and easy to locate, use and pay for, both at home and abroad.

PARK NOW offers users the best possible parking solutions at a glance, allows users to reserve parking slots and manage their parking times, and enables ticketless entry and exit in public garages as well as cashless payment of parking fees.In Europe and North America over 30 million customers are already using the service. CHARGE NOW and PARK NOW are headed by Jörg Reimann as CEO, with Thomas Menzel as CFO.

FREE NOW offers a variety of mobility services including taxis, private chauffeurs with rental vehicles and e-scooters. One of the largest ride-hailing services in Europe and Latin America, FREE NOW already serves more than 21 million customers and over 250,000 drivers. It is headed by Marc Berg as CEO, with Sebastian Hofelich as CFO.

SHARE NOW is a free-floating car-sharing service that allows customers to rent and pay for vehicles by smartphone. Its fleet will now be extended to incorporate a wider range of models and increase market coverage. More than 4 million customers in total currently use the fleet’s 20,000 vehicles in 31 cities around the world. Olivier Reppert has been appointed CEO of SHARE NOW, with Stefan Glebke as CFO.

“We are steering very clearly towards growth, and together we will continue to invest consistently in our joint mobility services. As well as linking in additional transport options, we want to reach out to even more people in towns and cities across the world, thereby improving the quality of urban life,”, said Harald Krüger, Management Board Chairman of BMW AG.