Volkswagen to offer electric carsharing services

BERLIN - Volkswagen will enter the increasingly-crowded German carsharing market with a fleet of purely-electric vehicles, the Wolfsburg-based company announced on Wednesday.

"We are convinced that there is still potential in the carsharing market," Volkswagen head of sales Juergen Stackmann told press in Berlin.

The new "WE" service will become available in Germany in 2019 before being expanded to major cities in Europe, North America and Asia from 2020 onwards, according to the company.

Aside from electric vehicles, Volkswagen said that users of its platform would also gain access to electric scooter variants. "This way we will relieve pressure on urban space in an intelligent fashion", Stackmann said.

Although Volkswagen cooperates with or holds shares in international mobility companies which are already active in carsharing, it is the last of Germany's major carmakers to launch its own shared vehicle venture.

In an unusual move for the two traditional automotive industry rivals, Daimler and BMW recently announced the merger of their respective platforms Car2Go and DriveNow.