April 8, 2016

BMW launches ReachNow carsharing service in Seattle

This morning, BMW launched its free-float carsharing service, called ReachNow, in Seattle. This is exciting to me as both a sustainable transportation researcher and a citizen of Seattle.

ReachNow’s service model is free float carsharing, meaning that travelers can use their smartphone to book a car up to 30 minutes ahead, and drop if off in most legal on-street parking spaces anywhere in a defined “home area.” This is the same basic model that car2go has been offering for several years, but ReachNow offers a mix of BMW 3-series, Minis, and i3 electric vehicles:

I am excited to see a broader mix of vehicles available for free-float carsharing here, and that some of them are electric. BMW also announced that the ReachNow’s North American headquarters will be in the city. I am looking forward to having them close at hand and seeing them engaged with the UW through the new Mobility Innovation Center.

I’m also personally excited as a citizen of Seattle who uses a wide range of transportation options. I signed up for ReachNow this afternoon, and while it wasn’t quite as easy as signing up for Uber (mind you, Uber doesn’t give you the keys to a $30,000 vehicle…) it was much easier than when I signed up for car2go back in 2013.

I downloaded the app at 12:42 and immediately started my registration:

I entered basic information, and as with Uber and Lyft, I was able to scan my credit card with my phone’s camera. But then it got pretty cool. I also scanned my driver’s license, and to verify my identity, the app had me take a picture of myself and compared the photo with my license photo:

After just seven minutes, registration was officially done:

But I couldn’t yet book a car:

“Cool!” I thought. “Only 3 more minutes. I can still say that I went from app download to reservation in under 10 minutes.”

But it was not to be. It actually took about 10 minutes for my driving record to be verified.

That said, 15 minutes from downloading an app to being able to book a BMW i3 from my phone is pretty amazing. I’m looking forward to using ReachNow for real tonight.

Congratulations to the ReachNow team on a successful launch!