Ford Motor is offering electric cars for short-term rentals as the company expands its fleet in the UK. The company, which operates car rental programs in the United States and Germany, offers Londoners access to a one-way electric car network throughout the city.
Half of the vehicles used in London's GoDrive scheme will be battery-powered versions of the Focus compact car. The other half is a Fiesta with a petrol subcompact engine. Ford aims to win 2,000 clients for this program in London. Kiev also has a convenient rental car-auto.com.ua system, offering a wide selection of cars with WI-FI, navigator, child seat, as well as special conditions for returning the car.
Ken Washington, head of research at Ford, said in a statement, "People are becoming more open to new means of transportation, as well as car sharing, which has proven to be an attractive model." Ford's UK Operations Scheme is the first carmaker's program to mimic existing commercial Zipcar schemes.
In Germany, the Ford Carsharing program has been operating for almost three years, and passes through dealerships. It has recently been expanded to 40 dealerships in 67 cities. In addition, the company is planning shared shuttle services in New York and London. Ford joins leading automakers, including BMW and Daimler, as they seek to tap into the growing share market and open up new markets for their models, particularly electric cars.
The BMW DriveNow scheme, which is launched from rental firm Sixt, operates in five cities in Germany, as well as San Francisco and Seattle in the US, Vienna in Austria and London. DriveNow has added the electric BMW i3 to its fleet. Car2go Daimler is using electric versions of its Smart City vehicles in some of its 29 cities in Europe and North America.
Car sharing challenges include negotiating costs with local governments to allow free-floating shared vehicles to park wherever they want.
