Innovation

As public transport cannot fully replace the use of cars, they are still needed, but DriveNow wants to strive for less people to own cars but to use this car sharing service instead. The main target user is a middle aged male living in the city, but according to Timo Valtonen, the age range of the users has been from 19-76 years.

The main SDG that this innovation contributes to solve is SDG 11, Sustainable Cities and Communities. More specifically, the targets 11.3 “By 2030, enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization and capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable human settlement planning and management in all countries” and 11.6 “By 2030, reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management”.

Furthermore, the innovation helps solving SDG 9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure and target 9.1 “Develop quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructure, including regional and transborder infrastructure, to support economic development and human wellbeing, with a focus on affordable and equitable access for all”. Other SDGs that the innovation contributes to solving is SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production and more precisely target 12.2 “By 2030, achieve the sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources”. (United Nations, 2019)

United Nations, 2019. Sustainable Development Goals. Available at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs [Accessed 4 October 2019]

Inspiration

The Managing Director, of DriveNow Finland, Timo Valtonen, has always been an entrepreneur. He is driven by implementing new businesses and services. In addition, he is really interested in the car industry and how it can be possible to introduce new services in this sector. DriveNow Finland belongs to the group DriveNow which was bought by BMW in 2018. So when the decision to implement the service in Finland occurred he was chosen. “I came to DriveNow as the implementer, i have been involved in the process since day 1.”

This how he defines what inspired him: “I have been interested in the cars, new services and new things. My background is that I have always been the builder of something new. I am keen on introducing new services.” He is motivated as he says by “a mission to give back the city to the people.”

Overall impact

DriveNow has a mission to “give back the city to the people”. The company provides a fleet of cars with fuel consumption the most efficient as possible to the people through an application. The goal behind that is to encourage people not to buy cars that would not be used a lot. The company wants to reduce the number of cars in the city to make it more liveable, green and designed for the people, not the cars.

Hence, the impacts are multiple. It provides a good service that prevents people to buy useless cars they won’t use that often. So it reduces the environmental impacts of the production, it reduces the number of cars in the city and make the city more livable for the pedestrians.

The solution has long term impacts since there is a reduction of cars in the city, a reduction of parking lots to make more rooms for the pedestrians and nature. People save money by not buying useless cars and insurances.

Business benefit

In the Helsinki area perspective, the company has a bit more than 30 000 customers. The main targets of the business are people between 30 to 35 years old, educated, with good jobs and incomes for the most part and which live in the city center. The retention of the customer is really good since the fleet has been growing to reach about 350 cars in service in the Helsinki area.

The rentability is long to reach. Indeed, you have to make huge investments at the beginning in order to buy the cars and implement the service. They have not reached profitability yet. The company has now 10 employees which work in the different departments of DriveNow.

This service has also enabled the creation of indirect jobs (parking, fleet deployment, cleaning the cars etc.). Indeed, at the moment, 10 indirect jobs have been created thanks to this service. DriveNow group was acquired by BMW in 2018. So this innovation is a good way for BMW to test new services in order to provide other services and solutions in the future.

Social and environmental benefit

The main idea that the Managing Director of DriveNow Finland Timo Valtonen discussed about DriveNow was to give the city back from the cars to the people, as unnecessary private cars are filling the growing cities.Thus, the innovation benefits both the society and the environment in many ways.

At DriveNow, they also hope to reduce unnecessary use of private cars, as people tend to use their cars only because they have one and if people would use this car sharing service instead they probably would not be using the shared service unnecessarily. That unnecessary short distances by private cars would be left out would be a positive benefit to the environment.

Furthermore, the cars available at DriveNow, are much more modern than average cars in Finland and thus consuming less fuel. They also have a few electric cars in Helsinki, but according to Timo Valtonen they will increase the amount of electric cars in the upcoming years.

Interview Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qRuN6ZZQbNzPr-4AyvtaiqtZrbHFH7aa/view

Interview

Timo Valtonen, Managing Director