ReachNow was a carsharing service operated by BMW Group in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

, and

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. It launched in 2016 and it shut down its services in Seattle and Portland on July 17, 2019. It used a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

for car reservations and operated a fleet of over 1,000 vehicles. It was one of three car-sharing services in the city of Seattle, competing with

car2go Share Now GmbH is a German carsharing company, formed from the merger of Car2Go and DriveNow. Since 2022, it is a subsidiary of the Free2Move division of multinational automaker Stellantis providing carsharing services in urban areas in Europe ...

and

Zipcar Zipcar is an American car-sharing company and a subsidiary of Avis Budget Group. Zipcar provides vehicle reservations to its members, billable by the minute, hour or day; members may have to pay a monthly or annual membership fee in addition ...

. ReachNow was similar to another BMW Group service

DriveNow DriveNow was a one-way carsharing service wholly owned by the automotive manufacturer BMW. In 2019, DriveNow and car2go, a carsharing service from Daimler AG, merged to form the global mobility provider Share Now, with a combined fleet of 20,0 ...

, but was focused on North American cities starting with Seattle. Unlike DriveNow which is a joint-venture with Sixt, ReachNow is a fully owned BMW subsidiary, with RideCell rather than Sixt, providing the technology platform.

History

It launched in April 2016 with 370 vehicles. In May 2016, Steve Banfield was named Chief Executive Officer and the company declared that they had reached 13,000 registered members; Car2Go, the main competitor to ReachNow in Seattle, stated they had 77,000 members at the time. In December, ReachNow announced that it would add 180 cars to its fleet in Seattle, bringing the total to 700, and lowered its minimum age requirement to 18 years old. The company is also expanding its operations to include four new Mobility Services: Reserve, Share, Fleet Solutions and a

ridesharing company A ridesharing company (also known as a transportation network company, ride-hailing service; the vehicles are called app-taxis or e-taxis) is a company that, via websites and mobile apps, matches passengers with drivers of vehicles for hire tha ...

, ReachNow Ride, to compete with

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), packa ...

and

Lyft Lyft, Inc. offers mobility as a service, ride-hailing, vehicles for hire, motorized scooters, a bicycle-sharing system, rental cars, and food delivery in the United States and select cities in Canada. Lyft sets fares, which vary using a dyn ...

. In March 2018, BMW and Daimler announced that their carsharing services, ReachNow and

Car2go Share Now GmbH is a German carsharing company, formed from the merger of Car2Go and DriveNow. Since 2022, it is a subsidiary of the Free2Move division of multinational automaker Stellantis providing carsharing services in urban areas in Europe ...

, would merge into a combined entity that would be jointly operated. BMW cancelled ReachNow Ride in May 2019 and on July 17, 2019, announced that it would cancel all of its services in Seattle and Portland effective immediately.

Service area

ReachNow initially launched in April 2016 serving a limited area of the

city of Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region of N ...

, but expanded several times to eventually encompass the entire city by December. ReachNow also expanded to serve the

Seattle–Tacoma International Airport Seattle–Tacoma International Airport , branded as SEA Airport and also referred to as Sea–Tac (), is the primary commercial airport serving the Seattle metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Washington. It is in the city of SeaTac, which ...

in August 2016. ReachNow expanded to

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the list of cities in Oregon, largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, Columbia rivers, Portland is ...

, on September 19, 2016, and parts of

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

in November. Service in Brooklyn was suspended due to maintenance issues.

Fleet

ReachNow maintained a fleet of 700 vehicles in Seattle, 360 in Portland and 260 in Brooklyn. Models included the BMW 328xi and BMW 330xi sedan, the electric i3, the

Mini The Mini is a small, two-door, four-seat car, developed as ADO15, and produced by the British Motor Corporation (BMC) and its successors, from 1959 through 2000. Minus a brief hiatus, original Minis were built for four decades and sold during ...

Cooper Cooper, Cooper's, Coopers and similar may refer to: * Cooper (profession), a maker of wooden casks and other staved vessels Arts and entertainment * Cooper (producers), alias of Dutch producers Klubbheads * Cooper (video game character), in ...

(in both 2-door and 4-door configurations), and the Mini Clubman. In December 2016, ReachNow added the

BMW X1 The BMW X1 is a line of subcompact luxury crossovers produced by BMW. Debuted in 2009, the first-generation X1 has been based on the E90 3 Series and offers rear-wheel drive layout as standard. At its introduction, it was positioned as the sm ...

to its fleet.

References

External links

* {{Vehicle rental brands BMW Carsharing Companies based in Seattle Transport companies established in 2016 Transport companies disestablished in 2019 American companies established in 2016 2016 establishments in Washington (state) 2016 in Seattle