“Better off sharing”: Opel launches CarUnity brand-agnostic carsharing concept
25 June 2015
Opel has launched CarUnity, its new carsharing concept. CarUnity enables vehicle owners and users to offer their own car for rental or to rent a car of their choice quickly, easily and flexibly. It does not matter if the car is an Opel or a different brand. The CarUnity app can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store and Google Play.
We are taking a new approach with CarUnity. Opel is the first automaker to offer carsharing for everyone. CarUnity enables individual mobility everywhere in Germany—at any time and with greatest flexibility. People in Germany can offer their car for rental or rent a car with the free app. Private carsharing fits to our brand—after all, approachable is one of our brand values.
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Using the app, car owners can decide who may rent their car. CarUnity users can, for example, offer their car only to their Facebook friends or to people in their personal CarUnity network. The entire transaction takes only a few seconds with the user-friendly app. Fuel costs are covered by the renter.
Insurance is provided for the rental cars. The Opel Bank GmbH developed a comprehensive package for this, and the insurance coverage itself is provided by R+V Allgemeine Versicherung AG.
Marketing for CarUnity is initially focused on the Rhine-Main region and includes cooperation with the radio station FFH, billboards at busy traffic hubs such as main railway stations as well as communication on social media networks. Many private individuals, Opel employees and dealers have already made their cars available to the community for the premiere of CarUnity. Some automotive treasures from Opel Classic can also be found on CarUnity.
Expanding the portfolio of mobility services is a key element of Opel’s plan for the future.
With CarUnity, early on we introduce young people who want to be mobile but do not have their own car to the Opel brand. In the future it will be increasingly important to develop from a product manufacturer to a mobility service provider with an outstanding network. CarUnity and our new personal connectivity and service assistant Opel OnStar will play an important role in digitalizing the Opel brand.
—Tina Müller
Against the background of the increasing importance of mobility services, Opel also announced closer cooperation with the ridesharing platform flinc. From 2016, flinc will provide the technical platform so that ridesharing can also be offered via the car-sharing app. Further details will be announced at a later date.
China have at least three grown P2P car rental companies,Daimler started to promote Car2go since 2013,it`s damn too slow to catch the China market.
Posted by: Danielding | 25 June 2015 at 07:33 PM
As I have said a couple of times, this is one solution to EV range problems. When you need a longer ranged vehicle, you rent (or as I have proposed) temporarily swap, cars, for an ICE.
You might need to do this for a couple of days a year - once you have a p2p car rental thing, you need to extend it to a swap service (non-trivial I admit) and take it from there.
IMO, the EV dealers should provide some cars to kick start it.
(Nissan could push in some "Note"s to swap for Leafs, etc).
In principal a car swap would be free or almost free, so you wouldn't be able to earn much money from it, but it would give 1 car EV families increased range now.
Posted by: mahonj | 26 June 2015 at 12:49 AM