VW unveils WE vehicle on-demand service, starting with car sharing, then other transport modes like scooters, launching next year in Germany, globally from 2020
Volkswagen Group is launching a car-sharing service called WE that only uses electric vehicles, following the lead of rivals …
Context & Ripple Effects
WE is the third leg of Volkswagen Group's on-demand mobility build-out. The group first bought into ride-hailing with its $300M Gett investment in 2016, then spun up Moia that December as a standalone company working on tech for self-driving on-demand transport (Moia debut).
What changes with WE is the model: instead of investing in or building for third-party networks, VW is operating the service itself — and doing it electric-only from day one, starting with car sharing in Germany before adding scooters and other modes globally from 2020.
First-order effects
- VW's own electric vehicles gain a second revenue path beyond retail sales, with the group's fleet deployed directly into German car sharing rather than sold to customers.
- Existing car-sharing operators in Germany now compete against an OEM-backed rival whose vehicles cost nothing to acquire at market rate because it builds them.
Second-order effects
- Scooter and other micromobility operators face a bundled multimodal alternative if WE folds them into one account and app, pressuring standalone services on pricing and convenience.
- Ride-hailing partners like Gett — where VW is already an investor — risk being bypassed as the group shifts from funding outside networks to running its own.
Third-order effects
- The pattern holds through the later record: WE becomes the EV-only WeShare rental service in Berlin, and the same on-demand infrastructure carries into VW's robotaxi plan with Uber using ID. BUZZ vehicles — pointing toward automakers structuring themselves as mobility operators, not just manufacturers.
The trend: Automakers are converting vehicle manufacturing into operated on-demand mobility services, with electric-only fleets as the entry point and autonomous vehicles as the endgame.