Starting from Shanghai, Shanghai International Automobile City Group's EVCard program is expanding to adjacent cities. Meanwhile, the Zhejiang Microcity Electric Vehicle Operation Co's Microcity EV, popular in Hangzhou city, is now entering Shanghai and Yunnan province.
Zhang Junyi, a partner with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants Greater China, said: "Cars are now becoming a mobile office for many people. More and more customers demand better individual experiences."
The Munich-based consulting firm has noted that the industry faces issues of parking spaces, dispatching among locations and handling of the used vehicles.
The customers' self image when using low-end mini-size new-energy vehicles, and limited charging and drop-off spots are also hindering demand.
Premium carmaker's time sharing plans usually provide better vehicle fleets, but on a much smaller scale. Daimler AG's Car2go runs Smart and BMW Brilliance Automotive's Zinoro provides a full electric sport utility vehicle developed from BMW X1.
Ride sharing
When a car owner drives his or her own vehicle and allows another person to join the trip for a fee, it is usually known as ride sharing. The car driver is not supposed to be a professional, but just sharing their planned journey.
Ride sharing differs from car hailing services, where a driver uses his or her own vehicle to take a customer where they wish to go.
Roland Berger's report found that the potential demands on time sharing and ride sharing that were not fully met reached about 91.4 million trips per day of the total 2.8 billion daily trips in 2015.
The potential market for time sharing and ride sharing may hit 110 million trips daily by 2020, Roland Berger predicted.
The major ride sharing players in China include Apple Inc and Legend Holdings-backed Didi Chuxing, LeEco-controlled Yidao Yongche and Uber Technologies from the United States.
Didi currently handles more than 11 million rides a day and serves about 300 million users. Yidao is serving more than 40 million customers worldwide. Both are providing ride sharing and a large portion of professional car hailing services.
President of IResearch Consulting Group Ruan Jingwen said: "Not only does there exist huge potential on the demand side, but also on the supply side. There is a strong willingness in sharing business users, both customers and drivers."
