Mobility – Volkswagen wants to make the bus cool again – Süddeutsche.de

The new brand of “Moia” aims to revolutionize the movement in the inner cities. However, others were faster.

Björn Finke and Max Hägler

the chief of The 13. Group brand comes casual. Sneakers, Jeans, Hand in pocket: Ole Harms presents the new subsidiary of the Volkswagen group. But Moia – so the company is called – is finally, no other car brand, but a kind of Internet Start-up, just with a Dax-company in my back.

presented Appropriately Moia-chief Harms the plans on Monday at the Tech Crunch Disrupt, a technology trade fair in London. In the choice of his rivals, he proves ambition: “Our main competitor is Uber,” said the 41-Year-old. The App of Uber conveys passengers to motorists. Because the drivers often have no in a Taxi, brings out the booming U.S. Internet companies, the taxi industry.

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As many of the city’s residents from having a car of their own, predict experts of companies like Uber or providers of car sharing high growth. The car manufacturer want to earn in the market of the future. BMW has built the car-sharing service Drivenow, Daimler’s Service is called Car2go.

Moia, however, follows a different concept. The Volkswagen subsidiary company wants to build in large cities in the world, a Shuttle Service, a mix of bus and shared taxi. Shuttle users can upload the Moia program on your phone and type in from where to where you want to go. The App is to run what is the collection point for the passengers. There, the Moia-a Minibus picks you up and puts you in the vicinity of your destination. The footpaths should not be too far, says Harms, and the prices reflect those of bus tickets.

the end of next year to start in two European cities. Obvious candidates in Berlin, the headquarters of the subsidiary, and Hamburg. With the Hanseatic city Volkswagen agreed in August a so-called mobility partnership: The group and the municipality want to develop transport projects.

Not a converted VW Bus, but a specially developed vehicle

Later on, would like to offer Moia the service worldwide in cities; the Management is aiming to generate sales in the Billions. The company intends to use specially developed vehicles, the Design of which is tailored to this use. “It will not just be a converted Van or VW Bus,” says Harms. The cars will have electric drive, and they will use technology from the Volkswagen group and in one of its factories to be built. Whether on the grille, a Moia Logo or the Logo of a corporate brand is emblazoned, did not want to Harms betrayed.

by the end of 2017 is to introduce Harms these cars, 2018 to cross several Hundred about the streets of the two pilot cities. A year later, Moia wants to start the first Tests with driverless mini-buses. BMW wants to test such robot cars already in 2017 on the streets of Munich . By 2025, Moia wool fleets, one of the largest driverless Car in the world to operate, says Harms.