HISTORY OF SHARE NOW
History of SHARE NOW car-sharing
SHARE NOW was founded in 2019 as a joint venture between BMW Group and Mercedes-Benz Mobility AG (formerly Daimler AG). It has its headquarters in Berlin. However, in order to fully understand this origin story, we need to go back a little further.
History of car2go
The birth of the original concept was back in 2007. The first phase of the car-sharing project began in 2008 in Ulm, Germany. The official market launch of car2go, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz Mobility AG, followed in 2010. In the following years, car2go expanded into 26 cities in Europe, North America and China with more than 14,000 Mercedes-Benz and smart cars. At four locations, a fully electric fleet was in operation.
History of DriveNow
Meanwhile, DriveNow was founded in 2011 as a joint venture and has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BMW Group since March 2018. Fleet operations began in Munich in June 2011. In the following years, DriveNow expanded its service to 12 locations in Europe with more than 6,500 BMW and MINI cars. Fully electric cars like the BMW i3 became part of the fleet, with several other premium models being available.
Our SHARE NOW mission
The previously independent services car2go and DriveNow thus merged to form the joint car-sharing service SHARE NOW. Car-sharing members now profit from the merger of both services, with simpler access to a joint fleet and a larger selection of cars as well as cities via a fully integrated car-sharing app.
Synergies with Free2move
In July 2022, Free2move announced the acquisition of SHARE NOW. Its mission was to simplify mobility across its product offerings and expand its mobility hubs concept to 14 new cities. Combined, SHARE NOW and Free2move now reach more than 6 million customers worldwide.
