Anyone who lends their car regularly has to keep an eye on appointments and organize cumbersome key handovers on an ongoing basis. Mini now takes this from its owner.
Mini makes it easy to lend your own car to friends and relatives. With the help of the new “Sharing App”, the vehicle can be released for use by others via smartphone. They then open and start the car via their mobile phone. The app also enables appointment inquiries and bookings as well as querying the vehicle location and fuel level.
The service is available for all German mini models built from January 2020. It is also necessary to purchase and install a hardware component (“mini sharing module”) from an authorized dealer, which is available for 360 euros including a usage fee for the first year. For each additional year, 49 euros are due.
In the pilot version of the service, the driver still had the option of charging a usage fee for the rental. However, according to Mini, the function was not used enough so that it is missing in the finished app. Independently of this, users could make their own regulations for a fair compensation - for example, fully charge the car after a journey.
