BMW expands its ReachNow car-share service to Brooklyn
The company also launched a pilot program in Seattle for an Uber-like service.
At the LA Auto Show today, BMW announced that its car-sharing service, ReachNow is expanding to Brooklyn starting today. The city joins Seattle and Portland as municipalities that have access to BMWs and Minis for one-way rentals within a set geographic range.
The company also announced that in December it plans to launch a ride-hailing service similar to Uber and Lyft in the Seattle area called ReachNow Ride. The new service will use the same app the company already uses for car-sharing. Users will have the option of choosing a ride from someone or reserving and driving one of seven types of vehicles currently available for rent in the city.
What sets ReachNow apart from soon-to-be-rivals Lyft and Uber is that drivers will use the company's vehicles instead of their own cars. But as with more established ride-hailing services, the folks behind the wheel will be considered contractors, not employees. There's no word on when this service will expand to Portland or Brooklyn, where ReachNow car-sharing is already available.
Indeed, Brooklyn is especially important to BMW. "Part of the reason we choose Brooklyn was we wanted to make it clear we weren't just a West Coast solution," ReachNow CEO Steve Banfield told Engadget. "We weren't just a regional product. Our mission has been from the beginning to cover the continent."
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