Hyundai starts electric car-sharing in L.A.
Hyundai has established a new venture named MoceanLab to provide mobility services in LA. Starting with a pilot carsharing, Mocean Carshare will deploy up to 20 Hyundai Ioniq PHEVs across the city of angels still this year before adding pure electric vehicles to the fleet.
The longer-term goal is to transition the car-sharing fleet to 300 fully electric vehicles of Hyundai and Kia. The Mocean Carshare will be a part of the City of Los Angeles’ carsharing permit pilot program offered by the LA Department of Transportation (LADOT) and Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA METRO). The authorities operate under the Green New Deal, that also involves converting the entire LA public transit bus fleet to zero-emission buses by 2030.
For Hyundai, the car-sharing is just the start of the Moceanlab activities “as its service gradually covers a larger area of LA and diversify its mobility services,” Kyounglim Yun Executive Vice President of Hyundai Motor Group said at the launch. Also with a view to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, MoceanLab will gradually diversify to include “autonomous ridesharing, shuttling, multimodal transportation, and personal mobility,” the company states. Whether this will include the latest foldable electric kick scooter Hyundai presented this summer remains to be seen.
In Europe as well, Hyundai is becoming active in mobility services. The most recent example is the company’s (mini) rural car-sharing in Spain under the VIVe label. The service starts with a Kona Electric and Ioniq Electric in Campisábalos in the province of Guadalajara.
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