Car sharing in trend

In car sharing, you don't own the car yourself, you share it with others. Owner of the car is usually the car sharing provider. If you want to use the car sharing service, you conclude a framework agreement with the provider. Then you can book all vehicles of the provider around the clock independently.

Carsharing offers you the opportunity to be flexible and mobile by car without having to own your own car. Another positive point for you, especially in big cities: You can park your car free of charge in most parking lots in the business area (also in zones with parking ticket machines). In some cases there are even parking spaces reserved specifically by providers, e.g. in multi-storey car parks or even at airports. The advantage for cities is that car sharing can replace many private cars and thus help to ensure that the areas freed up can be used for other purposes.

If you want to use the car sharing offer of a provider, you must first identify yourself there and show your driving licence. With some providers you get a small chip on your driver's license, which you hold to the car and can open it so. You sign a contract with the provider and download the app. Now you can book vehicles via the app.

On June 10, 1988, the carsharing initiative stadt-AUTO was founded in Berlin. In the beginning, five people shared a car. The project was originally a field trial for a scientific dissertation. The Berlin model quickly found imitators in many German cities.

In principle, car sharing is suitable for everyone who does not need a car every day, e.g. to get to work.

Car sharing now exists in over 500 cities and communities in Germany. You can find out whether there is a provider near you here. In many big cities you have the choice between different providers.

On the one hand, suppliers naturally differ in their vehicle fleets. But there are also two different return models: station-based or free-floating. Station-based means that the vehicle is picked up at a nearby station and must be returned there.

Free-floating means that you locate the vehicle by mobile phone and after the journey you place it in a defined area where you want. The latter variant can currently only be found in larger cities. The best known providers here are car2go from Daimler and BMW DriveNow.

Station-based car sharing is usually cheaper than free-floating car sharing. But of course it is also less comfortable.

Car sharing can be cheaper than owning your own car. The German CarSharing Association (Bundesverband CarSharing) states that car sharing is ahead in terms of costs when driving less than 10,000 kilometres. The reason is that your own car causes high fixed costs: you have to pay insurance and taxes, workshop costs and also the loss in value should not be underestimated. With car sharing, your usage fee covers everything.

Many car sharing providers stipulate a minimum age of 18 or 21 years. Partly you also have to add a security package. The best thing to do is to ask your local supplier how it is handled there.

Unfortunately, the answer here is no. All providers require a class B driving licence. The BF17 certificate is not sufficient. I'm afraid you'll have to be a little patient here.