Europcar Group will be acquiring a majority stake in the pay-per-use electric car service the E-Car Club, according to recent reports.
While the exact financials of the deal haven’t been publicly disclosed, it is known that the acquisition is expected to allow the E-Car Club to expand its service offerings and area.
As it stands, the E-Car Club provides service throughout London, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Fife, and Warwickshire. Presumably, service within these areas will be expanded, in addition to expansion elsewhere.
“Entrepreneurship and innovation are strong values we share with E-Car Club and that we want to preserve and enhance,” stated Fabrizio Ruggiero, of the Europcar Groupe management board, and the head of mobility. “We look forward to accelerating the development of E-Car Club’s electric vehicle car sharing solutions, based on Europcar’s extensive experience and client base in the UK marketplace. This investment, once again, demonstrates Europcar Lab’s ability to identify specific strategic opportunities to enrich the mobility offers to its customers.”
Despite the majority acquisition, the E-Car Club’s founders, Andrew Wordsworth and Chris Morris, will continue to lead it — while looking to broaden the customer base amongst business and the public sector.
“This is an incredibly fast moving sector and working with an organization of Europcar’s calibre will enable E-Car Club to continue on its path to further growth,” stated Morris. “We look forward to having an even more meaningful impact on the way government, private businesses and members of the public approach their daily travel needs across the UK.”
With overall car ownership levels having likely peaked in the recent past, and electric vehicle use/adoption on the rise, services such as the E-Car Club seem fairly likely (in this writer’s opinion) to see strong growth in the coming years.
Image Credit: E-Car Club