Free2Move, the car rental and car-sharing business developed by PSA Group, now has the capacity to begin to seek new outside investors, its chief executive Brigitte Courtehoux said.
Started as a brand in 2016, the business became a fully-fledged legal entity within the Peugeot owning-group previous week. It provides a range of so-called mobility services, which include taxi rides, as well as rentals, and car-sharing.
The new status gives it greater autonomy to develop its own apps and provides the way to seek new investors.
“It remains completely open,” Courtehoux stated in an interview. “It’s one of the possibilities, but we aren’t there yet.”
“We’re really in stage one (which consists of) profitable growth and pulling it all together.”
Free2Move’s car-sharing service rivals with French start-up Drivy, Share Now, jointly controlled by Daimler AG and BMW AG, Renault’s Zity and Europcar’s Ubeeqo, in what has become an increasingly crowded and fast-moving landscape.
It also competes with taxi app Uber and U.S. car-sharing company Zipcar. Free2Move employs 150 tech experts specialized in data, design, and e-commerce.
The company’s first-half earnings increased by 23%, Courtehoux said, in spite of the coronavirus crisis that led to the suspension of its car-sharing service in Paris, France and Madrid, Spain.
Courtehoux refused to provide any specific financial statistics but Free2Move’s sales remain small compared to the ones generated by PSA’s main car brands, Peugeot, Opel, and Citroen.
The health crisis compelled it to delay 2021 plans to extend its car-sharing network, which also consists of Washington DC and Lisbon, to a few unnamed big European cities.
FCA, with which PSA hopes to merge in the first half of 2021, has its own rental and car mobility entity called Leasys.
“We’re very complementary, we have a very common vision of what we want to do in the world of mobility,” Courtehoux said.
