7 More European Cities Getting WeShare
WeShare is an electric carsharing service underneath the arms of Volkswagen and ŠKODA that launched in July 2019 in Berlin with the rollout of 1,500 electric vehicles.
In 2020, WeShare is moving into 7 more European cities, where it will be putting 6,900 electric vehicles onto the streets, bringing the WeShare total up to 8,400.
The first cities to get added to the network will join in the spring. Those are Prague (Czech Republic) and Hamburg (Germany).
Later in the year, Paris (France), Madrid (Spain), Budapest (Hungary), Munich (Germany), and Milan (Italy) will join the fun.
As noted at the top, WeShare is a 100% electric carsharing system. Vehicles used in the fleets will include the Volkswagen ID.3, Volkswagen e-Golf, and Volkswagen e-up! (The e-up! name has that exclamation mark in it — I wasn’t just overly giddy about the models. Just sayin’. … Also, can we leave exclamation marks out of names?) Berlin currently uses e-Golfs only.
WeShare already has 50,000 registered users in Berlin.
“For us, 2020 will be a year of dramatic growth,” said Philipp Reth, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of WeShare, before adding. “We are convinced that all-electric free-floating car sharing will be a significant, scalable transitional element in the field of sustainable, shared mobility for a considerable time on the way to automated transport systems.”
The network’s biggest problem has been lack of charging infrastructure. It is working to remedy the problem now in a partnership with Schwarz Group in which Schwarz is “installing a total of 140 public charging stations at 60 Lidl and 10 Kaufland locations in Berlin.” WeShare exclusively gets to use the stations while the stores are closed, and anyone can use them while stores are open. That’s a good, efficient system for maximizing the use and return on investment on the charging infrastructure.
The company is also pushing for more city governmental support for its venture. “We therefore hope that will receive support from the cities for example in the area of parking charges for car sharing vehicles or the designation of new car sharing areas in public spaces with a view to providing incentives for potential users and making car sharing even more interesting and relevant,” says Reth. Good luck with that.
Have any of our readers used WeShare yet? We’d love to hear back from real humans about their experiences with the carsharing network.
All images courtesy WeShare
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