More car-sharing news, this time from the UK. Following a successful run with a pilot programme called City Driving On-Demand, Ford has announced that it will begin making its London-based car-sharing service available to the public. The objective is to target on-demand use and gain insight on emerging mobility trends as well as customers' car-sharing habits.
Known as GoDrive, the service offers flexible, practical and affordable access to a fleet of cars for one-way journeys with easy, guaranteed parking throughout the city.
The system works on a pay-as-you-go approach, with pay-by-minute pricing covering congestion fees, insurance and fuel. Drivers simply use a smartphone app to easily reserve and access a car, and running costs are displayed via the app.
The pilot experiment saw 100 registered members accessing zero-emission Focus Electric or fuel-efficient Fiesta 1.0 litre EcoBoost models from secure parking hubs near major public transport locations such as Waterloo and Victoria railway stations.
Now, Ford is inviting 2,000 UK residents between 21 t0 70 in London to register for a free expanded service offering 50 cars across 20 locations; half of the GoDrive fleet consists of Focus Electric vehicles. Interestingly, diplomats, sports professionals or entertainment professionals won't be able to join the programme (something about insurance not being able to cover the professions), but everyone else is welcome.
The GoDrive programme joins other Ford car-sharing experiments in Germany, India and the US. In Germany, Ford Carsharing has run for two years and recently expanded to 40 dealers in 67 cities with 135 locations - in partnership with large, multi-partner car-sharing company Flinkster, the service allows Ford Carsharing customers to use about 3,600 Flinkster vehicles, and Flinkster's 270,000 customers to utilise the Ford fleet.
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