Volkswagen funded start up showcases world’s first 6-seater electric ride sharing car

Going by the experience of the Sri Lankan cricket team at Feroz Shah Kotla recently and that of all other Delhiites, air pollution is our enemy number one. Along with long commutes and parking woes, life can’t possibly get more miserable. Few seem to have an answer that can actually solve the riddle. Yet, one start-up seems to be rising to the challenge with the ambitious mission to get ‘one million cars off the road’ in Europe and USA by the year 2025. Elon Musk would be proud. Even if the company in question happens to be a start up funded by German auto giant Volkswagen and is based out of Berlin, Germany. Say hello to MOIA and its 6-seater electric ride sharing car concept. Touted as the world’s first ever such concept, the vehicle was showcased recently at Tech Crunch Disrupt Berlin 2017.

The car – developed over ten months – looks boxy, has a proper mini-van look and has LED DRLs.  The rear gets flat lined LEDs that run from side to side. MOIA claims that the electric car has a range of 300km and it can achieve 80 per cent charge in 30 minutes. The interiors are designed to seat six adults comfortably as it was designed for ride pooling services. The car has features like dimmable reading lights, USB chargers and Wi-Fi. A luggage bay is behind the driver seat. The system also consists of a customer app, driver app and fleet management system. The customer app allows people to book, ride and pay for a MOIA car. A pooling algorithm detects people going to similar destinations and groups them together and avoids detours, thereby reducing travel time. The company, which is just a year old, is into developing mobility services and has offices in Hamburg and Helsinki and has tie-ups with various public transportation organizations.

Ole Harms, the CEO of MOIA says that ride sharing car will be launched globally by 2018 makes their mission a reality. The service has been undergoing testing since mid-October in Hannover to help the development process real-time, in a fleet of 20 Volkswagen T6 multi-vans.

“The car represents total comfort and is a crucial piece of our consistent service experience. We developed it using our co-creation process, which involved multiple rounds of potential users of various age groups testing cars and providing feedback. Many of the ideas from this process went directly into the development of the car. We’re also working on other future versions as well,” said Robert Henrich, chief operating officer, MOIA.