This should be labeled as 2017. Anyhow, what funny is: "Owned by BMW, ReachNow is a subscription car rental service that competes with Car2Go". This was 2017. Ever since DriveNow (ReachNow) was merged with Car2Go intro ShareNow, then sold off to Stellantis, now it's being rebranded as Free2move, as the branch of Stellantis that's managing the company. Plus, they're completely out of the US for years already. Lots of changes since the original article.
I used to work in the same office building as the Austin office. Car2Go's business model was dumb. You could apparently rent a Mercedes from them with just your phone. Except the rental spot was in downtown Austin, near all the hotels and stuff to do. If you've made it from the airport to downtown Austin, why would you need a rental car?
Are we talking about the same business? Here in Seattle, there were cars all over the city, and you'd just hop into whichever one was nearest when you wanted to go run an errand. It was a completely different service from conventional, long-term car rental, aimed more at locals than at people coming in from out of town.
I suppose it is technically true that the cars were built by Mercedes, but they were the cute little two-seater Smartcars, not the big luxury machines.
That doesn't work in Austin. Everyone I've met in Austin who didn't have a car told me about how bad public transport was and how they were saving up for a car.
