Last summer, Ford launched two smart mobility ride-sharing pilot programs.
Fast forward to Tuesday, January 5, 2016 and each trial-period effort has produced early success.
Joined by Ford's chief of research, Ken Washington, the automaker's CEO Mark Fields spoke about its GoDrive and Peer-to-Peer ride-sharing pilots continuing to grow during Ford's press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2016 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
GoDrive, an on-demand, one-way car sharing service with guaranteed parking, has transitioned from a pilot to an in-use service being used by upwards of 2,000 people in London.
From that pay-for-what-you-use service, Ford was able to learn that electric vehicles are the most popular from 30 to 40-year-olds and that a whopping 97 percent of participants in the car-sharing program said that they would use an electric vehicle again.
Similarly, Ford learned that its Peer-to-Peer car-sharing program was most popular amongst millenials.
"People are more interested in renting someone's new car than they are sharing their own," Washington said, evoking laughs from the packed press conference.
No surprise there.
It will be interesting to see whether both programs grow to the point where they're being used regularly and increasingly in the United States.
