Starting today, Seattleites have a new way to get around town, while companies like Car2go and Uber now have new competition.

BMW on Friday launched its one-way car-sharing service ReachNow in the Seattle region, allowing people to use the free-floating vehicles as a method of transportation.

The service brings an alternative to car2go, the popular car-sharing service in Seattle that works very much like ReachNow: Customers use a smartphone app to find available vehicles, hop in a car, drive to their destination, and park in any legal city parking spot.

BMW labels its service as “premium,” with 370 ReachNow vehicles available in Seattle — a mix of BMW 3 Series, MINI Cooper, and all-electric BMW i3 cars. GeekWire initially spotted several i3 vehicles around town in February as BMW ran beta tests for the program.

Seattle is the first launch city for ReachNow and will also be home to the ReachNow North American headquarters. The launch comes six months after BMW suspended an electric car sharing pilot program called DriveNow in San Francisco, ending its electric vehicle car sharing pilot program due to parking permit regulations in the city that prevent car-sharing programs from parking vehicles on public streets. BMW also already operates DriveNow service in Europe.

“I am pleased that with the establishment of the ReachNow brand, we are able to offer our customers in Seattle ‘on-demand mobility’ — mobility when it’s needed, from one single source,” Peter Schwarzenbauer, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, said in a statement. “With this service, we are building up on Drive Now, our extremely successful European business model, and bringing it up to a new level in the U.S. Seattle is an innovative, internationally-oriented city which makes it the perfect location to launch these services.”

We are at the launch event for ReachNow in Seattle, and will update this story with more details.

There are also a host of other related services planned for Seattle this year, including a chauffeur service that will be a direct competitor to Uber and Lyft. BMW will also have ReachNow vehicles available at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport next quarter, giving arriving passengers another way to get home.

Other services that will launch in 2016 include the ability to have a car delivered to your location; long-term rentals; car-sharing for residential and corporate groups; and the ability for MINI Cooper owners to rent out their personal vehicles to ReachNow.

BMW plans to launch ReachNow in three additional cities this year, with plans to eventually service 10 North American metros.

Here’s where you’ll be able to find and park ReachNow vehicles in Seattle:

Here are some pricing details:

• $ 0.49 per minute while vehicle is used ($ 0.41 per minute for limited time at launch)
• $ 0.30 per minute while parked
• $ 39 registration fee (free for limited time at launch)
• Automatic price caps at 3 hours ($ 50), 12 hours ($ 80), and 24 hours ($ 110)

Meanwhile, Car2Go, which is owned by Daimler AG, maker of Mercedes Benz, has made a big mark in Seattle since its launch here three years ago. Its white and blue mini vehicles are spotted on many city streets, and last year the company announced citywide expansion plans that included adding another 250 vehicles. Seattle is Car2go’s largest U.S. market, with more than 75,000 members.

“The program has been wildly successful,” Transportation Committee Chair Tom Rasmussen said last year.

That expansion was enabled by legislation approved by the Seattle City Council in January 2015, which also cleared the way for up to three additional companies to launch car-sharing services in the city — thus why BMW is now in Seattle. Each car-sharing company can receive 500 permits to start, and up to 750 if they agree to provide service across the city.

Here’s a statement from Car2go:

As the sharing economy goes mainstream, we expect followers to see what we saw when we launched here in 2012. Seattle is a great city for carsharing, and we’ve cultivated a 75,000 strong membership here. One-way carsharing is a complex business to operate, and any new competitor will have a significant learning curve to contend with. Having said that, we believe the more mass transit, carsharing and ridesharing options people have to get around, the better because services like car2go alleviate traffic and parking congestion and improves quality of life.

The Seattle Department of Transportation released data last month showing how Car2go helped more than 9,000 car-owners give up their vehicles as they relied more on Car2go.

Story developing, more to come…

GeekWire

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