Car-Sharing and e-scooter providers found association

E-scooters and rental cars have long been an integral part of the cityscape - but they don't have the best reputation either. Nine providers have now founded an association to change that.

Too often, e-scooter rental and car-sharing providers have been left out of crucial discussions, in their opinion. That's why nine of them are now organising themselves into their own association. In this way, they also want to become a central point of contact for politicians on the subject of "shared mobility" - and improve the image of the industry.

They are all free-floating companies, which means they do without fixed stations and distribute vehicles throughout the city. But they often face criticism, for example because the scooters are in the way of local residents. According to the Bundesverband Carsharing (BCS), free-floating car rental companies operate around 14,200 vehicles in Germany - and that's only in 15 cities. Station-based providers, on the other hand, have 12,000 cars, but they offer them in more than 850 cities.

The companies that have now joined forces founded the "Shared Mobility Platform" back in mid-January. From now on, the association includes e-scooter rental companies Bird, Dott, Lime, Tier, Spin and Voi, as well as carsharin providers Miles, Share Now and Weshare.