Between two parties, the third gains. The Car2go-Enjoy derby, which also means Daimler against Eni or, if you prefer, Smart Mercedes against Fiat 500, pleases not only the two companies that have made Italy a case of worldwide success of the new car sharing model, that free flowing. “It will seem like a paradox – he explains Gianni Martino, Italy country manager of the company of the German Daimler group with more than 850.000 customers (140 in Italy) in 28 cities between Europe and North America – but even taxi drivers have understood that it's better for them too: the more options there are for customers, the more they decide to give up their private cars. And in Vienna and Hamburg, where there was a boom in our car sharing, the turnover of taxi drivers has also increased”. “Car sharing – he confirms Giuseppe Macchia, vice president of Eni's Smart Mobility Services – is added to the other mobility services available to the citizen, thus increasing the possibilities of choice that will induce more and more customers to leave their car to move around the city with the services available, obviously including taxis”.
Car2go-Enjoy, a challenge to be played between Milan and Rome and as regards the former – from May – also in Florence (“With very good results”, anticipates Martino waiting to be able to reveal official data), where they are also about to land the latter, "with a view to extending the service to other realities, with a careful eye also abroad", as the Eni manager admits. Car2go was founded in 2008 in Ulm, Germany and has according to the latest data, exceeded 26 million rentals in all the countries where it is present, of which more than 1 in Italy "Equally divided between Rome and Milan, where the fleet is also equal, of 600 cars for each city". In Florence there are currently 200 cars, for a worldwide total of 11.500, of which 1.250 are electric. Enjoy instead it arrived on the market less than a year ago but already boasts similar results: “In mid-September – remembers engineer Macchia – Milan and Rome celebrated a total of 150 members and over 1 million rentals for each of the two companies. To date, Milan, the city of Enjoy's debut in December 2013, has exactly 112.000 registrations, while Rome, since last June, has totaled 38.000”.
“Our weapon – explains Martino – is the quality more than the price: the daily rate is convenient (and there could be further news shortly, ed), but the hourly rate remains less competitive than that of our competitors. However, we would like to reiterate that our cars consume less, pollute less and take up less space in car parks and on the street”. “Our costs – confirms the manager of Enjoy – are currently the lowest on the market, both when moving and when parked: 0,25 euros per minute and 0,10 euros”. Beyond what many think, the game is not just about savings but about a new way of getting around the city. “The detractors – argues the Italian country manager of Car2go – argue that the success of car sharing is exclusively due to the crisis: the product is cheap, therefore it is convenient. This is certainly true but it is only one aspect of success: it is also there environmental awareness and especially the social trend: getting around in big cities is increasingly complicated between traffic and Ztl or Area C, where our cars can pass instead". That saving is a secondary topic is also demonstrated by a recent survey conducted by Ipsos for Car2go: the car sharing user, predominantly male, is in the upper range in terms of income, age and schooling and this is the real reason for the boom, which has involved all social classes, indeed basically the wealthiest and most informed ones.
A wide and transversal user, therefore, who rides the new trend of the sharing economy, the agile and competitive economy of apps and of the digitized and participatory model with customers, with networks and sharing that replace the old top-down structure: therefore the various Amazon, Alibaba, eBay, Spotify, Tripadvisor, Uber and so on, that cause so much discussion but to which traditional companies are now also winking, as in the case of mobility, taxis. "With Enjoy, Eni is supporting the transformation underway whereby more and more people tend not to own the automobile asset, but rather to share it", explains Macchia. New services that are defined as “customer centric”, having as main objective an immediate and increasingly usable service for the customer: "Through the App - continues Macchia - which practically works like a remote control allowing you to quickly locate the nearest car, book it and open it, we have in fact dematerialized the process of the current car sharing on the market which provide for the obligatory use of a card”. Card which remains compulsory for Car2go, which will also adapt the entire service via the App by 2014.
But why has car sharing made it big in Italy more than elsewhere? “Because the public has shown itself ready for cultural change – explains Martino – but also thanks to the excellent marketing and communication strategies put in place by Daimler in our case, which also give us hope for the future. If it is in fact evident that the emotional effect of the launch is fading, it is also true that the trend continues to be positive and we have excellent forecasts for 2014. For example, it is very probable that by the end of the year we will break through the barrier of one million customers all over the world”. A cultural revolution, which also pleases taxi drivers and which sees Italy in the front row.
