DriveNow was a one-way carsharing service wholly owned by the automotive manufacturer

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

. In 2019, DriveNow and car2go, a carsharing service from

Daimler AG Mercedes-Benz Group AG (formerly Daimler-Benz, DaimlerChrysler, and Daimler) is a German multinational automotive company headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is one of the world's leading car manufacturers. Daimler-B ...

, merged to form the global mobility provider Share Now, with a combined fleet of 20,000 vehicles in 31 cities in 14 countries and over four million members worldwide. Share Now is one of the five mobility services which are part of the mobility joint venture of the BMW Group and the Daimler AG. DriveNow service began in Munich,

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

in June 2011. As of October 2017, DriveNow operated over 6,000 vehicles in nine European countries. Apart from five cities in Germany - Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Düsseldorf, and Cologne - DriveNow is available in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

and

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

. In October 2017, the company reached the milestone of one million customers. DriveNow operated a fleet comprising only vehicles manufactured by subsidiaries of BMW Group including various MINI models (3 and 5 door, Convertible, Clubman, Countryman) as well as BMW X1, X2, i3, 1 series, and 2 series. Created as a joint venture between BMW Group and the car rental company Sixt SE holding 50% of shares each, DriveNow became a wholly owned subsidiary of BMW in March 2018. On 29 January 2018, BMW announced that Sixt SE had agreed to sell its 50% stake for c. €209 million. In April 2018, BMW Group and Daimler AG agreed to combine their mobility services, including their car sharing devices DriveNow and car2go, to shape sustainable urban mobility for the future. A similar

service, ReachNow, was offered in North American cities from April 2016 to July 2019, in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

and

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

. In contrast to DriveNow, ReachNow's technology platform was provided by RideCell rather than Sixt.

Operation

Cities

The following table details all cities where DriveNow operated:

One-way car sharing model

In contrast to classic car rental, where a vehicle is rented at a designated location and typically returned after one or more days, one-way carsharing models allows the use of freely parked vehicles in the city area, or business area. Vehicles can be found and rented through an app on the phone. Driving charge is by a minute rate that ranges between 0.24 to 0.57 per minute depending on the vehicle and business area. The price includes fuel, parking, and insurance. DriveNow also offers packages to make the per minute rate cheaper. Vehicles can be parked back anywhere in the business area of the city. Typically, the car must be parked in the same city as it was rented. The exception is in Düsseldorf and Cologne.

App

An app for mobile devices allow users to locate and reserve vehicles. When reserving a car online, the customers are able to see the car's fuel gauge (gasoline-powered cars) or the battery's state of charge (electric-powered cars), so if the customer wants to go for an extended drive, they can find the right car for that trip. Cars can also be opened and closed through the app.

Vehicles

DriveNow operates a variety of gasoline-powered and diesel BMW 1 Series, BMW 2 Series, BMW X2 series,

BMW X1 The BMW X1 is a line of cars produced by German marque BMW since 2009. It is in the subcompact luxury crossover SUV, subcompact luxury crossover class, and the first-generation X1 was based on the BMW 3 Series (E90), E90 3 Series and offered rea ...

, Mini Countryman, Mini Clubman, Mini Convertible and Mini Cooper vehicles as well the electric-powered

BMW i3 The BMW i3 is an electric car that was manufactured by German marque BMW from 2013 to 2022. The i3 was BMW's first mass-produced zero-emissions vehicle, zero emissions vehicle and was launched as part of BMW's electric vehicle ''BMW i'' sub-bra ...

and BMW ActiveE. In the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

, DriveNow deployed a fleet of 70 BMW ActiveE electric cars by July 2015.

Electric driving

DriveNow Electric Driving with BMW i3 DriveNow once claimed to offer the largest electric car sharing fleet in the world, using BMW i3, BMW i3 Rex, and BMW Active E. Since 15 July 2015, a total of 724 full-electric BMW i3s have been in regular operation in the fleets of Berlin (130 vehicles), Hamburg, Cologne / Düsseldorf and Munich. The BMW ActiveE in Berlin and Munich were thus replaced. In London, DriveNow offered the BMW i3 from May 2015 till closure and could thus benefit from tax relief. In Copenhagen, DriveNow launched a purely electric fleet of 400 vehicles in September 2015.

References

External links

Official website
{{Vehicle rental brands German companies established in 2011 BMW Car rental companies of Germany Free-floating carsharing Transport companies established in 2011 Transport companies disestablished in 2019 German companies disestablished in 2019