Three Berlin infrastructure operators are developing cross-company car sharing with electric cars.

“Smart eFleets” is a project of BVG (Berlin public transport authority) , BSR (Berlin waste disposal operator) and Berliner Wasserbetriebe (waterworks) funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI – Bundesminister für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur) together with the German Aerospace Center (DLR – Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt), carano GmbH and inGmbH. The partners develop and pilot solutions for cross-company vehicle and charging infrastructure sharing at municipal companies at InfraLab in Berlin.

Berlin’s Senator for Economics, Energy and Business, Ramona Pop, supports the project: “With ‘Smart eFleets’, Berlin’s utilities and waste disposal companies are jointly demonstrating how modern, zero-emission transport works. Thanks to intelligent energy management and the networking of vehicle fleets and charging infrastructure, climate-friendly electric mobility can be used even more efficiently.”

BVG, BSR and Berliner Wasserbetriebe as well as InfraLab Berlin partners Stromnetz Berlin and Vattenfall Wärme Berlin, which are also involved in the project, are already pioneers in the field of electric mobility. Together they are already putting more than 300 electric vehicles on the road, and the number is set to rise significantly in the years to come. At the same time, the government-owned companies aim to reduce their joint total demand for vehicles, charging points and network expansions. This will be achieved through a holistic pooling and sharing approach.

“The operation of electric vehicles in fleets is an important factor in the market ramp-up of battery electric mobility,” says Steffen Bilger, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). “The ‘Smart eFleets’ project addresses important aspects for scaling the use of electric vehicles in fleets: The cross-company use of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure will increase capacity utilisation and thus achieve economic and ecological benefits. The Berlin utilities and waste disposal companies show that everyone can benefit from intelligent vehicle and charging infrastructure sharing.”

To ensure this will work smoothly, an app is being developed in “Smart eFleets” with which the employees of the participating companies can make reservations for the sharing offers at any time on their mobile devices and across companies. An energy management system delivers the technology to ensure that peak loads do not increase any further, but are rather reduced thanks to electric mobility.

The project will be implemented until 2022 – supported by the Berlin Agency for Electric Mobility (eMO – Berliner Agentur fürElektromobilität).