DriveNow expands car-sharing service in London

BMW’s car-sharing service Drive Now is expanding into five new boroughs in London – Westminster, Barnet, Tower Hamlets, Southwark and Brent.

The expansion will see an additional 410 premium BMW and Mini vehicles available throughout the capital.

Now available in nine boroughs in total, DriveNow says it is continuing its contribution to reduce the number of privately-owned vehicles on the road and be part of the solution to London’s air pollution problem.

The five new boroughs, join Hackney, Haringey, Islington, and Waltham Forest, to comprise the overall service area.

James Taylor, managing Director for DriveNow UK, said: “We are delighted to announce the expansion of DriveNow into five new London boroughs today – which will more than double our fleet and operating area for our customers. More Londoners will now have access to a shared car when they need it and help remove more private cars from our congested roads.”

DriveNow´s CEO Sebastian Hofelich added: “It was always the vision of DriveNow to expand to more parts of London and underlines the great potential that we have seen in this city from the start. I´m very pleased about it.”

Taylor continued: “We’ve worked very closely with each of the boroughs throughout this process to make this a reality.

“We hope that car sharing, alongside other sustainable transport options such as walking, cycling and public transport, will continue to be embraced by Londoners to help reduce congestion and pollution and build a more liveable city.”

The expansion will see DriveNow increase its current fleet to a total of 720 BMWs and Minis available across the nine London boroughs.

The new fleet will provide Londoners with a selection of Mini Clubman, Mini Convertibles, Minis, BMW 1 Series as well as the BMW i3.

In all, 80 additional electric BMW i3s will join the fleet in January, advancing DriveNow’s ambition to have an 80% all-electric fleet by 2025.

With more than one million users, DriveNow operates a fleet of more than 6,000 vehicles across Munich, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Hamburg, Vienna, London, Copenhagen, Brussels,Milan, Helsinki and Lisbon.

Users can drive by the minute or book an hourly or daily package with everything included, from insurance and fuel to parking and road tax.

All new UK customers who join from November 2 will, for a limited period, receive complimentary registration, as well as an initial £20 driving credit to get on the road.