“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em – or buy ‘em’”.

That appears to be the approach taken by the major daily rental operators when faced with the potential threat posed by the leading carsharing companies.

In 2013 Avis Budget acquired Zipcar while January 2015 saw Europcar buy a majority stake in Ubeeqo. One of the first steps Europcar took in the wake of its buy-in was to offer Ubeeqo’s solutions to its business-to-business customers.

Last July saw Europcar go a step further and acquire a majority share in E-Car Club, the UK’s first entirely electric pay-per-use car club, through Europcar Lab, its unit dedicated to innovation.

Other daily rental operations are finding different ways of moving into car sharing and ensuring they do not lose out.

Sixt joint venture

Sixt has done so by means of a joint venture with BMW, which is branded Sweden’s capital Stockholm one of the most recent to join the party.

Other locations where it is active include Vienna in Austria, Copenhagen in Denmark and Berlin, Munich and Hamburg in Germany; and DriveNow has been integrated with the Moovit app. Not surprisingly, the programme revolves around BMW and MINI models with 400 i3s commissioned for Copenhagen as part of an initiative linking DriveNow with the Danish capital’s public transport system.

Active in the USA, Canada and the UK, Enterprise CarShare’s roots go back to 2008.

Described by Enterprise as an extension of Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s daily rental service, it has expanded steadily both organically and by purchase, acquiring Canada’s AutoShare in 2014. One consequence is that Enterprise CarShare is now available at over 200 locations throughout the Greater Toronto area.

Leasing companies join in

Nor are the major leasing companies ignoring the opportunities car sharing may offer.

Late in 2015 LeasePlan announced it was introducing a new car-sharing service called SwopCar, initially in the

Netherlands and Luxembourg but with plans to roll it out globally in the coming months. “As a result of trends such as urbanisation, sharing, eco-awareness, mobile devices and connectivity, we foresee a shift from vehicle-oriented services to individual driver-oriented services,” says LeasePlan chief commercial officer, Nick Salkeld.

Alphabet has for sometimes been promoting a service under the AlphaCity banner.

If you have got the corporate muscle of a major car hire or leasing company behind you – Europcar has increased Ubeeqo’s available capital to the tune of €4m – then you have access to resources that will allow you to advance on a number of fronts.

Zipcar has signalled that it plans to expand globally. Last year’s activities included a launch in Istanbul, Turkey, a tie-up with SNCF, France’s national railway company, and a major expansion of its presence on college and university campuses in North America.

New participants include Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of Tampa and Wichita State University.

Many of today’s students will of course be tomorrow’s corporate executives who may need to drive on business.

Disruptive innovation

“In effect what the rental and leasing companies have done is face what is sometimes referred to as disruptive innovation – in this case, car-sharing – head-on and managed to combat it by absorbing it wherever possible into their existing operations,” observes one wellknown automotive industry figure.

“They’ve been pretty successful at it so far too – perhaps more successful than traditional cab companies have been in their attempts to head off Uber.”

The growing sophistication of vehicle connectivity makes sharing offers easier to implement, but the car-sharers are not having things all their own way. Though successful globally, Daimler’s Car2Go has withdrawn from some important markets over the years, including the UK.

The question for all car-sharing operations is which sector of the market they are going to target. Consumers? Fleet? Or both?

Most appear to be pursuing the third option and riding both horses; or trying to.

Mobility solutions

With a client list that includes Airbus, Danone, Veolia and aerospace group Safran – it has recently expanded its involvement with the last-name business – Ubeeqo for example is promoting Mobilities Benefits.

It allows employees to rid themselves of a large company car in favour of a smaller one or access to a fleet of shared cars. On top of that they can make use of a mobility allowance, which could be used to fund, for example, train travel.

The allowance can also be used to pay for car hire, which means a potential boost for daily rental revenue. In Ubeeqo’s case one suspects that there is more than an even chance that Europcar will be the rental company of choice.

Not wishing to neglect private motorists, in January Ubeeqo launched a mobility app aimed at consumers in Paris and London which gives them access to cars for use by the hour as well as to taxi and – once again – car rental services.

“It really makes no sense at all for someone living in a major town or city to own a car,” argues Ubeeqo founder and chief executive officer, Benoit Chatelier. “It will sit outside their home for the majority of the time depreciating as well as incurring maintenance costs, and insurance cover is usually higher in cities.

“Many people living in capitals believe that ditching their car means losing their independence however,” he adds.

Avail themselves of Ubeeqo’s app and they will quickly discover that it does not, he contends.

Refining the model

Zipcar has recently increased the flexibility of its car-sharing package aimed at consumers and will be rolling out its revised approach in selected North

American markets over the coming months, including Los Angeles. Zipcar’s near one million members will be able to use designated vehicles either oneway or round-trip, with parking included, change their planned destination half-way through a journey and extend their trip for as long as they wish.

The changes are being introduced as a consequence of feedback from members and non-members, says Zipcar. They have also come about in the wake of findings from various test markets and from a programme it has been running in Boston in conjunction with Honda since late 2014.

At launch the new flexible element will solely involve Honda including the Fit (Jazz) five-seater subcompact.

“We’ve known for the past 16 years – ever since we were founded – that the future of mobility is paying for the trip, not the car,” says Zipcar president, Kaye Ceille.

Not that the needs of corporate Zipcar members are being neglected.

Last summer Zipcar announced that some 40% of all Zipcar for Business members – people in the USA who join its car-sharing scheme through an affiliation with an employer – sell or avoid buying a vehicle after they have signed up to its services. The research into their attitudes was carried out in conjunction with the University of California, Berkeley’s Transportation Sustainability Research Centre.

Fewer cars

This means that the need for approximately 33,000 vehicles across North America has been eliminated, says Zipcar; a modest number given the total size of the North American car market, but one which may nonetheless give motor manufacturers pause for thought.

The study also found that of those Zipcar members who became zero-car households after joining the scheme, 41% use public transport more frequently, 41% walk more regularly and 22% cycle more often.

“Businesses are increasingly conscious of their environmental footprint and this research supports what we’ve long believed,” says Ceille. “That is that Zipcar for Business has many significant environmental benefits for companies, including reducing the number of vehicles they have on the road.”

Salkeld’s reference to urbanisation highlights one of the limitations of car sharing. While it can work well in urban areas with a large population of both people and cars and a well-developed transport network, sparsely-populated rural areas with no rail links and limited bus networks – and in some cases poor phone signals – present more of a challenge.

Car manufacturer involvement

As indicated earlier with DriveNow, Car2Go and Honda’s links with Zipcar, the car manufacturers are getting in on the car-sharing act. One of the latest is Opel in Germany, with a scheme based on the CarUnity app (pictured above), while PSA Peugeot Citroën has committed itself to developing a car-sharing offer in conjunction with electric car maker Bollore.

Ford’s latest car-sharing initiatives are being piloted in both the USA and the UK through Ford Credit while General Motors is making its presence felt in the sector with a new brand called Maven. Debuting in the USA in Ann Arbor, Michigan, it will be rolled out across other major metropolitan areas during the course of this year.

Other GM car-sharing initiatives include Let’s Drive NYC, aimed at consumers in New York who require a car from time to time but do not necessarily need to own one.

“With more than 25m customers around the world projected to use some form of shared mobility by 2020, Maven is a key part of our strategy when it comes to changing ownership models in the automotive industry,” says Julia Steyn, GM vice president, Urban Mobility Programs.

Which is probably another way of saying that if you can’t beat them, join them; and try to ensure that your sales don’t suffer too badly as a consequence of all this innovatory disruption.