Volkswagen Group sold its electric car-sharing service WeShare to German startup Miles Mobility for an undisclosed price due to its inability to bring profits to the business, Reuters reported.
Miles will integrate WeShare’s 2,000 Volkswagen-branded electric vehicles into its gasoline-fueled fleet of mostly 9,000 vehicles, the companies said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Miles has ordered more than 10,000 electric vehicles from Audi, Seat, Cupra and Volkswagen brands, which will be delivered from 2023.
Christian Dahlheim, chief executive of Volkswagen Financial Services, said in an interview that the Volkswagen Group decided to sell WeShare because the company realized that shared services could not improve profitability after 2022. Dahlheim also pointed out that the cooperation between Volkswagen and Miles Mobility is not exclusive, and Volkswagen will also provide vehicles to other car-sharing platforms in the future.
According to Miles, the car-sharing service WeShare will operate as usual for the time being. In the coming weeks, WeShare’s vehicles and customers will be integrated into the Miles system.
Miles was recently involved in an initiative by the German city of Hamburg, where the car-sharing company struck a deal with Share Now, Sixt and WeShare to increase the share of electric vehicles in its fleet to at least 80% by 2023/24.
The transaction represents yet another German automaker abandoning its car-sharing business. BMW and Mercedes-Benz already sold their joint car-sharing business Share Now to Stellantis mobility subsidiary Free2Move this summer.
