Earlier this year, Sixt rolled out connected cars in Germany for rental on its mobility platform. The connected car "enables you to locate [it] by your mobile phone, to reserve it, walk up to it, open it, drive it and manage the whole billing cycle with your phone," Sixt senior director of group international sales for Europe and the U.S. Stuart Donnelly said at BTN Group's recent Minneapolis Business Travel Trends & Forecasts conference. Users can pick up the car at a Sixt branch or from a street parking spot, and messaging when they arrive at airports can tell them where to find their connected cars. "By the end of this year, Germany and Netherlands should be live with about 50,000 vehicles," Donnelly said. "By the end of next year, we should have more than 200,000" across multiple countries, including the U.S.
In February, Sixt integrated taxi, ridehailing and transfer service providers into its platform, which also offers car rental and car sharing services. It's adding more car sharing providers this quarter. Starting next quarter, Sixt will integrate e-scooters and electric bikes.
Sixt is working on leveraging machine learning in its platform to recommend mobility options that incorporate corporate travel policies and traveler preferences, Donnelly said.