Free2Move, PSA Groupe’s Mobility-as-a-Service Bet

PSA Group announced that its car-rental and car-sharing branch, Free2move, is ready to receive outside investors, Reuters reported. "Free2Move embodies Groupe PSA's ambition to become the preferred worldwide mobility service provider by 2030. It is meant to provide the most convenient mobility services, anytime, for both end customers and corporate customers," Brigitte Courthehoux, CEO of Free2Move, said on a statement. 

The mobility subsidiary of PSA Groupe was founded in 2016 and the app, launched in 2017, reached 1 million users in 10 different countries in less than 18 months after its launch. The app makes the most of MaaS services. It allows users to check different carsharing providers, to rent vehicles and reserve parking spaces. Free2Move also offers shared vehicles in Paris, Washington D.C., Madrid, Lisbon and Wuhan, where the user can look for the nearest vehicle and unlock it with the app. Except for Washington, these fleets are between 500 to 1,000 self-service electric vehicles. 

The company reports 260,000 active users for its car-sharing services worldwide. Most rides are less than 30 minutes and each user reserves a vehicle between three to five times per month. As the MaaS market is expected to reach 36 million users by 2025, Free2Move is focusing its transition towards integrated mobility.

The Free2Move App can be considered an App of Apps that gives access to 50 different mobility services in 34 cities. These services include: peer-to-peer car-sharing, self-service carsharing, ride-hailing services, self-service rental bikes and scooters. The company is operating in 13 countries, including the US and China. "It allows people to access the most popular mobility solutions – cars, bikes, freeride kick and motor scooters, ride-hailing services and public transport – from a single application," says the company on its corporate site.

One of the most recent services Free2Move launched is Car on Demand, where the user pays a monthly subscription service to drive the model or models they prefer. This service includes insurance, assistance and maintenance. This kind of service has also been implemented by Nissan with its Nissan Switch program in Texas. Free2Move is also betting on corporate customers to use its services and relies on PSA's projects to develop its Connected Vehicle Modular Platform, a kind of automotive IoT global platform to advance connected cars.

Amid the pandemic, the company has postponed some of its plans to further develop its car-sharing network in new cities, Reuters reported. However, as the MaaS market continues to grow, automakers will continue to develop strong mobility service offers to support the end-user.