BMW DriveNow: Walk up to a Bimmer, and drive away!

Want to drive back home in a BMW? Or make a cool entry to the next party in a MINI? It could be as easy as walking up to one parked on the street, and driving off! That’s what the German luxury marque is aiming for with its new car sharing service, DriveNow.

Launched in Europe in association with rental car company Sixt, the service allows users to rent and drive BMW and MINI vehicles for a charge. What’s different though is that instead of picking the car up from a rental agency office, users of DriveNow will be able to pick designated rental vehicles parked on the street by earlier users.

Once a driver has subscribed to the service, he will get a DriveNow chip stuck on to his or her driving license. At the root of the new way of renting lies the fast-blooming smart phone technology, which will allow users to track DriveNow vehicles close by, book them and receive an ID number. Users will only need to walk up to the vehicle and wave the chip over a sensor on the car to unlock it.

The service will kick start soon from BMW’s home base in Munich with 300 vehicles, and will expand into Berlin soon after that. Once the service is in full swing though, planners behind the idea are aiming to have a DriveNow vehicle within 500 metres of anyone. The service is also being lobbied as one of the new methods of adding new users for BMW and MINI, which the company is projecting to reach 10 lakh by the end of this decade.