Volkswagen Group has initiated partnerships with 12 cities across the world as the German carmaker looks to offer products beyond its traditional automobile business and become a provider of tailored intelligent urban mobility solutions.
The cities include Hanover, Hamburg and Wolfsburg in Germany as well as international locations such as Prague, Barcelona and Hefei in China.
With its ‘Together 2025+ Shaping Mobility – for generations to come’ strategy, the automotive OEM is positioning itself as a provider of solutions for future-proofed, efficient, silent, safe and sustainable individual mobility.
Over the next 10 years, Volkswagen Group will launch some 70 new electric cars, as well as electric micro-mobility solutions including SEAT’s eXS KickScooter, Volkswagen’s Cityskater and the Cargo e-Bike from Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles for goods transport.
In the public transport sector, Scania and MAN, which are both owned by Volkswagen Group, will offer municipalities electric buses such as MAN New Lion‘s City E and Scania’s Citywide LF electric bus from the end of 2020.
Furthermore, from early 2020, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles will launch the ABT e-Caddy and the ABT e-Transporter.
Other mobility-on-demand solutions being developed include MOIA’s electric ride-hailing offering and WeShare’s electric car sharing service to solve the problems caused by congestion and the shortage of space in cities.
In addition, Škoda has launched the pilot operation of BeRider, its electric scooter sharing service, in Prague, where users of Škoda‘s CityMove app can put together individual mobility mixes of bus, tram, metro, rental bike, taxi and ride-hailing to suit current traffic conditions.
The app also provides support for finding parking spaces, and features a payment gateway that processes transactions for all services.
