BETTER PARTSAs car sharing, only with electric scooters
Gerlingen/Berlin, 5th August 2016
BMW has DriveNow, Mercedes has Car2Go and Deutsche Bahn called its car-sharing service "Flinkster". The automotive supplier Bosch wants to join, but now also in a very specific niche: in the "sharing" of electric scooters.
Find and start the rollers per app
The service is now available under the name coup in Berlin available. First are 200 electrically powered and networked scooters available. You are Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Friedrichshain successively in Berlin and Kreuzberg. Currently, only the an electric scooter can rent, which "is invited". However, you can ask on the website of coup to such an invitation. The eScooter can be find, book and pay via a corresponding app. Also the start of the electric scooter is made by Smartphone that connects via Bluetooth to the eScooter.
Cheaper than DriveNow
The scooter has a maximum speed of 45 km/h, so that it can be used by any passenger car or motorcycle licence holders aged 21 and over. A helmet and two replaceable batteries are located under the seat. Later, a second helmet for a passenger to be offered. The eScooters a range of around 100 kilometres. The charging is done by coup. Price model is based on simple flat-rate tariffs: 30 minutes a day cost three euros, 20 euros. This is significantly cheaper than the cars of DriveNow. There, ride a minute costs 24 to 31 cents, so at least 7.20 euros for half an hour. A whole day and 200 kilometres cost even 109 euros with DriveNow. As with DriveNow the vehicle anywhere within the City provided in coup.
Scooter from Taiwan
The coup mobility GmbH is a 100% subsidiary of Bosch. Construction and operation of sharing platform completed coup in cooperation with BCG digital ventures, a subsidiary of Boston Consulting. The scooters are, however, from the Taiwanese company Gogoro. The 2011 based start-up took the "Smartscooter" in July 2015 in Taiwan on the market. First the base price amounted to 128,000 Taiwan dollars, which is approximately equivalent to 3,600 euros. A couple of months then dropped the base price on 88,000 TWD (around 2,500 euros). In Taiwan, sold the roller without battery, instead you get paid monthly for access to special battery-Exchange stations. Since 2011, 10,000 Smartscooter have been sold according to the company's website about. Outside Asia, the scooter is not offered.
Individual mobile without your own vehicle
Traffic jams and parking not shape traffic in large cities, so Bosch. In particular, young people want to be mobile and flexible, a car must be but no longer required, the company believes. Therefore Bosch developed various mobility solutions such as a networked parking space management, a cloud-based fleet management and apps to the multimodal (i.e. cross-transport) navigation. The new Sharingdienst coup is a further component of this mobility solutions division. "With coup, Bosch enters into a pure retail and operator business for the first time in the mobility sector and creates a new standalone brand," says Markus Heyn, the competent Bosch Managing Director. (sl)