German carmaker Audi has announced it's buying Silvercar, the US startup that currently helps it develop and offer app-based rental and mobility services.
German carmaker Audi has announced it's buying Silvercar, the US startup that currently helps it develop and offer app-based rental and mobility services.
Silvercar specializes in app-controlled seamless car rental services was recently named North America's best rental car service by World Travel Awards for the services it currently operates out of a number of US airports.
"Audi and Silvercar share the same vision," said Dietmar Voggenreiter, Board Member for Sales and Marketing at Audi AG. "We want to open up a new, flexible way to access mobility for our customers while offering premium quality in every respect."
As well as swapping out gasoline in favor of electrically powered drivetrains, the other huge change about to engulf the established automotive industry is a move from simply building cars to offering clients mobility solutions.
These solutions could be as straightforward as memorizing your preferred routes and daily schedule or giving you the digital resources to rent your car to others when you aren't using it.
Audi has been testing the waters in this respect with pilot schemes in several US cities, such as Audi on Demand in San Francisco, that enable users to book the use of specific cars for specific uses at specific times and have the vehicle delivered to their door and that use Silvercar's digital expertise.
This move to mobility from manufacturing is why Ford has this week announced a $300 million+ investment in a new research facility in Canada and a doubling of its mobility and connectivity engineering team.
As well as Ford's investment, this week has also seen Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler double its efforts to provide car-sharing initiatives in China by combining two of its businesses -- car2go China and Car2Share -- into one service. The move means users will be able to access "free-floating" and "stationed"vehicles for private on-demand use. The services already boast 250,000 registered users who clocked up a combined 5 million kilometers in 2016.
Frost & Sullivan forecasts that by 2025, 36 million people globally will be using carsharing services, a significant jump from the 7 million registered users at the end of 2015.
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