The Volkswagen Group is driving forward its transformation into a mobility provider and is entering into a partnership with car sharing company MILES Mobility. In this regard, MILES Mobility has acquired UMI Urban Mobility International GmbH from Volkswagen Passenger Cars and with it the WeShare car sharing business and will integrate it into its existing portfolio. Both parties have agreed not to disclose the purchase price. Also in the context of the new partnership, MILES has ordered more than 10,000 all-electric vehicles from the Audi, Seat/Cupra and Volkswagen Passenger Cars brands, which are scheduled for delivery from 2023. In this way, Volkswagen aims to participate even better in the rapidly growing market for new mobility services, offering greater choice to its customers at the same time.
“New mobility services such as car subscription models and car sharing are enjoying strong demand. This is a trend in which we would like to participate more. With a strong partner to operate the fleet and with vehicles from various Volkswagen Group brands, car sharing will become available to an even broader spectrum of customers. We are pleased to have found the perfect partner in MILES, whose portfolio will be bookable via the Volkswagen mobility platform. WeShare customers will then benefit from car sharing services in eight German cities,” says Dr. Christian Dahlheim, Chairman of the Board of Volkswagen Financial Services AG, which holds consolidated responsibility for the Volkswagen Group’s core activities in the field of mobility solutions.
MILES is currently active in Berlin, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and Potsdam. Two sites in Brussels and Ghent have been added in the fall of 2022. In the course of the future integration, it is planned to continue evolving the MILES fleet in line with the electrification of the Volkswagen Group. WeShare currently operates around 2,000 all-electric Volkswagen ID.3 and ID.4 vehicles at its Berlin and Hamburg locations – with a total of more than 200,000 users. The present MILES fleet consists of more than 9,000 vehicles, around 70 percent of which are supplied by the Volkswagen Group.
Oliver Mackprang, CEO of MILES Mobility GmbH, explains: “The electrification of the fleet is a key pillar of the MILES strategy on the path to sustainable urban transportation. With the acquisition of WeShare and its integration into the MILES ecosystem, we are making a significant step in the right direction. We are pleased to expand our long-standing collaboration with the Volkswagen Group through this mobility partnership.”
With its partners Attestor and Pon Holding, the Volkswagen Group only recently acquired car rental company Europcar. This company will be another key pillar of Volkswagen’s future mobility platform. The goal is to offer customers a broad spectrum of different mobility services ranging from car sharing for a few hours to a car subscription for several months. The platform shall also be open to providers from outside the Volkswagen Group, like MILES, in order to increase economies of scale and customer benefits. In this way, the Group intends to participate in the globally growing markets for mobility services.
Philipp Reth, Head of Volkswagen Group Mobility and until now CEO of WeShare: “Having successfully established the only all-electric car sharing offering in Germany with Volkswagen subsidiary UMI in the last three years, I now welcome this strong partnership with MILES Mobility.”