Sustainable Business Models - The Case of Car Sharing

Abstract

Replacing actual ownership of a commodity with a service that allows for temporary customer use of the commodity has been shown to be a good way to make industries more sustainable while retaining or even improving customer experience. However these kinds of services are often unsuccessful, because breaking the existing regimes requires systemic change involving enabling technologies, favourable governmental regulation, a successful market adoption strategy and a profitable business model. This study examines sustainable business models using the case of car sharing services. Using public sources a descriptive study is conducted on the business models of leading car sharing services in Europe and North America. From this data three different business model archetypes are derived: the freeflowing model, the traditional car sharing model and the peer-2-peer model. The three archetypes are fairly stabilized and there is little variation between the operators with the B2B-market probably being the next field to mature. Car sharing services also probably have a role in the diffusion of electric cars, because they work as a living laboratory for the car manufacturers in this respect and enable the building of charging infrastructure to new areas