Pursuits
German Car-Share Boom Gives BMW, Daimler Dibs on Young Drivers
A sightseeing bus passes a BMW Mini Cooper D DriveNow car as it sits parked on a city center street in Berlin.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
If Hamburg architect Oliver Kienzler had to buy just one car for his growing family, it would be a sensible Skoda station wagon. Instead, he has an entire fleet of BMWs at his disposal.
He’s part of a wave of urban German drivers who could afford to own vehicles but are relying on car sharing instead because they don’t want to search for parking, deal with maintenance and pay for insurance. Their choices are starting to have an impact in major cities in Germany, Europe’s biggest arena for cars and car sharing, a sign the market may be shifting away from ownership.