When you think of car sharing, you probably think of names such as ZipCar, City CarShare, Relay Rides and Getaround. What may not come to mind is BMW. The German luxury car company is typically known for selling cars for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars — not renting them out by the minute.
But it turns out BMW has been in the car sharing space for a couple of years now, with a small but growing program called DriveNow. DriveNow, which is active in five German cities and the San Francisco Bay Area, lets people rent electric BMWs by the minute.
I thought it was an interesting and somewhat unexpected initiative coming from BMW, so I met up with DriveNow’s CEO Richard Steinberg to learn about the program and why the company is getting into car sharing, and see how it measures up to other car sharing services. Check that out in the video above.