BMW and Daimler are allowed to bundle their forces in car rental and driving services. According to the EU Commission, the US antitrust agency has now also approved the merger of Car2go and DriveNow’s car-sharing fleets with a total of around 20,000 rental cars, as the two automakers announced.
The merger is scheduled to be completed at the end of January, with the new company planning to announce next steps during the first quarter of 2019.
The new company also includes the Moovel and ReachNow booking platforms, MyTaxi, Chauffeur Privé, Clever Taxi and Beat, ParkNow and Parkmobile parking services, and ChargeNow and Digital Charging Solutions, two charging services for electric cars.
The services of Daimler and BMW together have about 40 million customers, especially in Europe. The two automakers are working together to share the costs and grow faster – and not one day to be degraded to pure suppliers by car service platforms like Uber or Didi Chuxing in China.
Consumers benefit not only from the merger itself, but also from the conditions under which it was approved. According to the specifications of the European Commission, Mobility App Moovel will also have to display car sharing offers from competitors in the future. Conversely, competing apps may also display the offers of Car2go and DriveNow in the future.
Not only BMW and Daimler have ambitious plans. Germany’s largest car rental company Sixt is also working on a complete offer, with which customers can get car sharing, rental cars and chauffeur services bundled together in one app via smartphone. It is running at several stations and will be rolled out step by step next year. Sixt was originally involved in the BMW car-sharing provider DriveNow.