Free-floating carsharing is booming. In the first quarter of 2017, car2go rentals increased by 23 percent to 6.2 million. Worldwide, the international market leader now has over 2.3 million customers in 26 locations; in Europe there are over 1.3 million customers in 14 locations. A customer survey[1] at the European locations shows the reasons why customers rent a car2go car – and how this differs across Europe.
Customers mainly use car2go for leisure activities such as eating out in restaurant – Amsterdam came top in this area. 73 percent of the customers questioned in the city of canals said they regularly used car2go for this. In the Austrian capital Vienna, a few less costumers use car2go for this purpose, although more than half (53 %) still drive in fact to a typical “Beisl” in a car2go car.
The customers in the Eternal City of Rome rent a car2go car more often compared to all other European costumers for their journey to work (35 %), while customers in the Bavarian state capital of Munich do this less often (21 %).
People in Vienna use a car2go car the most for private appointments (45 %) such as doctor’s appointments – unlike the people of Duesseldorf and Cologne in the Rhineland, where this use-case is not as common (31 %).
In the financial hub of Frankfurt, the highest number of customers drive a car2go car to run private errands – such as grocery shopping – while customers in the fashion city of Milan use them not as frequent for shopping (14%).
“The cities we are talking about are very diverse and the inhabitants are very different – and that is also reflected in their usage habits,” says Olivier Reppert, CEO of car2go. “All customers have one thing in common: They live in a city where people don’t really need their own car but still want one to hand when they need it.”
Around 60 percent of car2go customers are aged below 36. This customer structure barely varies across the different locations.
[1] A total of 5,433 customers in 14 European cities were asked about their user behavior in the past four weeks (multiple choice).
