Inverse: Five Trends in Carsharing - Further Boom Predicted

Achieving climate targets, the mobility transition, and the goal of car-free city centers are just a few examples of current challenges that require innovative mobility solutions. According to the carsharing software specialist Invers, the following five trends will drive the industry in the coming year.

• The carsharing market will grow: by at least 20 percent:For the year 2022, the Federal Carsharing Association in Germany identified more than 3.4 million customers, representing an increase of around 18 percent compared to the previous year. The figures demonstrate a consistent market growth and reflect the plans of numerous shared mobility operators:
  "Many customers talk to us about expansion plans," says Bharath Devanathan, Chief Business Officer at Invers. "We expect the carsharing market to grow by at least 20 percent in the coming year." Expansion projects are also evident in current market developments such as the acquisition of WeShare by MILES or ShareNow by Stellantis/Free2Move.
• Profitability is in focus:At the same time, the pressure on operators to become profitable is increasing. In the shared micromobility market, it is expected that operators will continue to withdraw from less profitable cities to focus on lucrative markets. Examples include Bird’s withdrawal from Europe and GoSharing's withdrawal from cities like Saarbrücken.
  To increase profitability, some carsharing operators are outsourcing operational tasks on a large scale to specialized service providers like Cambio GmbH, which can achieve economies of scale. Others focus on increasing vehicle utilization by offering a vehicle on MaaS platforms or in complementary business models, such as corporate carsharing during the week and peer-to-peer carsharing on weekends. New concepts for fleet sharing and unified APIs support this approach.
• More offers with longer rental periods:The still young trend of car subscriptions continues. Mobility operators thus open up new customer segments. Around 100,000 to 130,000 car subscription contracts were concluded in 2020 in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, according to industry experts at Berylls in their study "Snapshot of the European Auto Subscription Market." The CAR Institute assumes that by 2030 there will already be between two and four million car subscriptions.
  Traditional carsharing providers like MILES or Hiyacar are moving beyond short-term rentals and addressing the long-term market, just like classic leasing providers and car rental companies, such as Sixt or Wheego. They are also targeting new customer segments and mitigating the resulting risk by technically monitoring vehicle usage data in detail and terminating access to the vehicle if necessary.