WeShare, Volkswagen and Škoda’s free-floating carsharing service, is to expand into seven further cities in Germany and other European countries in 2020.

Prague and Hamburg in the spring are to be followed by Paris, Madrid, Budapest, Munich, and Milan in the course of the year. In all these cities, WeShare will be offering an all-electric fleet with a total of about 8,400 electric vehicles. In Prague and Budapest, WeShare will cooperate with Škoda. In the other major cities in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy, WeShare vehicles on offer will include Volkswagen’s e-Golf1 and e-up!2 as well as the ID.33 from the end of the year.

WeShare already started operations in Berlin with 1,500 e-Golf cars in 2019 and the company now has 50,000 registered customers in the city.

One of the major challenges faced by WeShare in Berlin is battery charging. To compensate for the inadequate availability of public charging infrastructure, Volkswagen AG and WeShare have therefore started cooperation with the Schwarz Group. Schwarz is currently installing a total of 140 public charging stations at 60 Lidl and 10 Kaufland locations in Berlin.

As a cooperation partner, WeShare can use the charging stations for its car sharing fleet on an exclusive basis outside the opening hours of the stores. During opening hours in the daytime, the charging stations are available to all customers of Lidl and Kaufland. In addition to the Schwarz Group, WeShare plans to establish further partnerships with a view to expanding the available infrastructure.