Annual Report 2022

To the next quarter-century!
Shared mobility has never been more in vogue. The private car is losing its lustre, fossil fuel engines are on the way out, and an increasing number of cities and municipalities are committing to sustainable mobility models in view of the climate crisis. As Switzerland’s most successful car-sharing provider, our cooperative has been at the forefront of these changes since 1997.

When Mobility turned 25 last year, we received the most wonderful birthday gift from our customers: a quarter of a century after being founded, our number of users surpassed the quarter of a million mark for the first time ever, reaching 261’000. What a milestone! Could the founders of our two predecessor cooperatives, ATG AutoTeilet and ShareCom, ever have dreamed of where we are today, when they entered the car-sharing business independently of each other in 1987?

To achieve the mobility transition and a sustainable society, idealism and persistence are just as crucial now as they were then. Mobility is aiming to be climate neutral by 2040 and to operate a purely electric fleet by 2030. We are making good headway in this regard and we hit the 10 per cent mark in late 2022. Meanwhile, electric vehicles have become available in all categories, from budget cars to vans, which we are thrilled about. Needless to say, there are challenges in implementing this, but we can rely on our many motivated partners to help us achieve this goal.

Mobility has always been committed to innovation and is constantly trying out sustainable forms of mobility. But not all innovations work out. One such example was the free-floating service in Basel, which we brought to a close last summer after eight years due to high operating costs and low profitability. But he who dares wins – and that’s why we will be staying true to our role as pioneers in the future. With V2X Suisse, we are currently gauging the potential of bidirectional charging and we are taking part in research projects into battery service life.
Aside from this, we also took various steps to improve our core service in 2022. For example, vehicles can now be locked and unlocked by smartphone (Bluetooth). Mobility has also updated its offers and rates. Among other things, this means that long journeys are now more attractive thanks to day packages, members of the cooperative receive additional discounts for multi-day excursions and annual fees are being replaced by monthly fees. Additionally, we are aiming to convince more young people of the benefits of car sharing and have created an offer tailored to them. MobilityYOUNG enables people under the age of 28 to drive at particularly favourable and flexible rates.

We achieved and implemented so much in the previous year – all the more so in light of the global crises we have had to weather. Like many companies, we too have felt the effects of the stricken economy, rising energy prices and low consumer confidence. Nonetheless, Mobility managed to achieve a modest increase in turnover. At CHF 1.4 million, annual profit was better than expected.

The year ahead does not look set to be straightforward either – far from it. The economic situation is volatile and an increasing number of stakeholders are wanting a piece of the shared mobility market. We are rising to the challenges and continuing to invest in digital solutions that improve our users’ experience and make the switch to car sharing as easy and convenient as possible for the people of Switzerland.

For the next 25 years, our optimism will remain unwavering. Mobility has secured a strong position for itself and done so much right – and there is more room to grow too, as there are still too few shared vehicles in Switzerland. We are keeping our nose to the grindstone and working to shape the future of sustainable mobility – with our experience, daring and innovation.

Thank you for your support and interest. We hope you enjoy reading our 2022 Annual Report. 

Mobility is the fruit of multiple pioneers who founded two cooperatives in Stans and Zurich in 1987 around the same time with the common aim of providing members with cost-effective, flexible and sustainable mobility. That means car sharing. Looking back, Rolf Fischer, co-founder of the AutoTeilet cooperative, says: “We wanted to make mobility sustainable.” Another co-founder, Conrad Wagner, adds: “We were driven from the beginning by the idea of reducing traffic volume while creating a mobility solution with sustainability in mind.” For ten years, the two cooperatives pursued these objectives separately, even though there were aspirations to bring about a merger early on. In 1997, it finally came to fruition: ATG AutoTeilet and ShareCom merged and jointly founded the Mobility Cooperative. Choosing the name “Mobility CarSharing Schweiz” was a conscious effort to position itself as a broad and innovative mobility solution for the whole of Switzerland. 

At first, only a few idealists took advantage of car sharing – at least compared with today. After all, there were 760 vehicles available for sharing at the time. In part because there was no budget for large advertising campaigns, an eye-catching shade of red was chosen for the cars so that they would stand out on the road. The service soon proved rather popular: the cooperative regularly more than doubled its growth in the first few years of operations.

So much has happened since Mobility was founded that listing everything here would be beyond the scope of this report. Nonetheless, here are a few highlights: in 2000, the cooperative and its 100 employees in Lucerne moved to Gütschstrasse. This was followed by a move to Rotkreuz in 2018. In 2006, the Click&Drive service (now called mobilityEASY) was launched in collaboration with SBB. One year later, the popular budget vehicle category became available and shortly thereafter the app, which can be used to make reservations. In 2014, the free-floating experiment in Basel was launched and discontinued eight years later. Since 2017, Mobility has had a presence in every Swiss municipality with more than 10’000 residents. In 2020, the cooperative set itself the goal of electrifying its entire fleet by 2030 and becoming climate neutral by 2040. By late 2022, 10 per cent of the fleet was electric. Looking back over Mobility’s history shows the cooperative is a success story and is destined to remain so. Time to set some new milestones.

300 electric vehicles – and counting
Car sharing is a sustainable form of mobility by its very nature. People who share cars tend to use public transport more frequently and a Mobility vehicle replaces 11 private cars on average. This means fewer car parks, fewer traffic jams and less grey energy that needs to be expended on manufacturing the cars. But Mobility will not stop there: the cooperative is in the process of electrifying its entire fleet. It is aiming to achieve this goal by 2030. In December 2022, the cooperative celebrated an important milestone on the way there. In Thun, the 300th electric car and charging station were put into operation, making one in ten of Mobility’s vehicles electric – and the transition is continuing apace.

There are now electric vehicles in all categories
No matter what type of vehicle you need, since last year there are now electric vehicles available to customers in all the main categories, from budget cars to vans. In September, Mobility finally parked its first electric van at Bern railway station, with more additions by late 2022. Mobility’s customers love electric cars: at practically all stations where electric as well as fossil fuel powered vehicles are located, the electric vehicles are used far more frequently.

Obstacles on the road to an electric fleet
Electrifying 3’000 cars and parking spaces presents a significant financial and organisational challenge – especially with regard to expanding the charging network. Among other things, Mobility has to hold meetings with hundreds of landlords to set up power sockets at all existing stations. In cases where this is not possible for technical or other reasons, alternative stations will have to be found over the next few years. Other factors include price increases and supply issues relating to electric cars and components, which presented an obstacle to expanding the electric vehicle fleet during the year under review. On the other hand, the palpable motivation among all active partners to bring about the transition to sustainable, electric mobility is a very positive sign.

Raiffeisen is banking on Mobility’s electric cars
The collaboration between the Mobility and Raiffeisen Group cooperatives started in early 2022 and enables Raiffeisen banks all over Switzerland to park one electric car for sharing in front of their premises. The banks reserve a parking space and share the operating costs while Mobility provides the vehicles and charging points. After just under a year, the results are provisionally encouraging: 16 stations have been put into operation (including approval and fitting of charging points) and there are plans for twice as many to follow in 2023. Both customers and employees of Raiffeisen benefit from the shared cars, thanks to a variety of special offers and discounts. In the same stroke, the collaboration allows Mobility to expand its car sharing network in Switzerland.

Offsetting CO2 for 47 million kilometres
“Cause We Care” enables Mobility customers to make an even bigger contribution to keeping the environment intact. By making a voluntary contribution of 3 centimes per kilometre, the equivalent amount of the journey’s emissions can be saved elsewhere or removed from the atmosphere and stored. Mobility matches all climate contributions made. That means, for every kilometre driven under the “Cause We Care” scheme, 6 centimes go into the “Cause We Care” fund. All of Mobility’s business journeys are also offset in this way. Since the project was launched, over 47 million kilometres have already been offset. In conjunction with the climate protection foundation myclimate, Mobility is guaranteeing money from the fund is used as intended. Among other things, the expansion of the charging infrastructure is also being jointly financed so that all Mobility cars will soon be CO2-free.

Funding for climate protection projects
Money from the “Cause We Care” fund was also used to support or implement other climate protection projects and actions in 2022. For example, by choosing not to exploit timber in an area of woodland in the Prättigau and Davos region, the forestry practices there are being optimised for the climate, permanently removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. To do this, the owners of the woodland are choosing not to exploit timber from their forests and are committing to investing the income from the sale of CO₂ certificates in actions that help to boost the woodland’s resilience and biodiversity. Another project that is being supported involves energy-efficient stoves and solar stoves for Madagascar. Manufacturing and distributing these stoves helps to counteract the rampant deforestation in the country. Children and adolescents are also being made aware of environmental protection in schools and reforestation is boosted.

V2X project: shared cars as power banks
In September 2022, the one-year pilot project of “V2X Suisse” was launched and headed by Mobility. In collaboration with partners from industry, the research community, and academia, the potential of bidirectional technology is being tested under real conditions for the first time. To this end, Mobility is making 50 Honda e vehicles available for the project at 40 stations across Switzerland. These electric vehicles will feed energy from their batteries back into the grid when they are not being driven. This turns them into power banks on wheels and, if used in sufficient numbers in future, they could be used to bridge gaps in the energy supply and stabilise the power grid. This project is also being supported with money from the “Cause We Care” fund.

Mobility and Graubünden Ferien promote sustainable travel
Mobility has entered into a partnership with Graubünden Ferien and the canton of Graubünden that sets an example for sustainable travel. As part of the “Sustainable mobility in the Grisons” project, five additional, electrified car sharing stations are being created along the Alpine Circle, all of which are at hotels nearby the Rhaetian Railway station or at a PostBus stop so that they are easily accessible by public transport. As an additional incentive, there are discounts for residents and hotel guests. The first station in Sils was opened in December and this project is being continued into 2023.

Profit in spite of adversity
In 2022, Mobility Cooperative increased revenues slightly to CHF 83.9 million (+4.0%) and chalked up a net annual profit of CHF 1.4 million. The result is lower than in the previous year (CHF 2.8 million) but significantly better than expected. Both the sharp rise in fuel prices and increased costs due to damage events caused problems. In the year under review, Mobility invested in expanding the fleet of electric vehicles, in developing and expanding the IT department, and in research projects.

Over a quarter of a million car sharers for the first time
More and more users are turning to car sharing. In 2022, Mobility grew by nearly eight per cent, clocking up over a quarter of a million drivers in red, shared cars for the first time. As an absolute figure, the number of Mobility customers rose to 261’000. Mobility also welcomed 1’000 new members of the cooperative (total: 74’800).

150 new companies opt for Mobility
Mobility has also succeeded in winning over business customers. On this front, 2022 saw growth of 3 per cent. In other words, 150 additional companies became more sustainable by implementing car sharing, either eliminating their fleets entirely or reducing them with Mobility’s services. We hope that the business sector will soon reattain the level it was at in the years leading up to the pandemic.

Mobility responds to an increase in damage events
In recent years, Mobility has been confronted by a sharp increase in damaged vehicles. Around 3’500 cases were being recorded per year, placing the cooperative under financial and organisational strain. Mobility implemented a range of measures in response in the year under review, including no longer allowing people under the age of 25 to drive cars in the Emotion category. Furthermore, efforts were intensified to make sure that parking spaces at the stations are clearly demarcated. We made our customers aware of this in articles, newsletters and other means of communication. Lastly, Mobility has been training its field staff in the spot repair method which is used to resolve small dents and scratches easily and cheaply. The cooperative has also since fitted 750 vehicles with sensor boxes, which record sharp impacts, bumps and accelerations. The purpose of this is to counteract the fact that too many users do not report the damage they cause.

The end of the free-floating service
Mobility discontinued the “Mobility Go” free-floating service in June 2022 due to declining demand and high operating costs. The cooperative launched this type of car sharing eight years ago to gain experience of an emerging trend in Europe. As demand declined due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the scheme was first discontinued in Geneva in 2020. Basel followed two years later. Mobility will now use its experiences from the free-floating service to improve its station-based car sharing service. 

The cooperative bolsters cyber-resilience
Companies need to protect their IT infrastructure against attacks on an ongoing basis. One important aspect of this is to make people aware that they themselves are often the weakest link in the chain. This is why Mobility carried out a security awareness campaign for all employees in autumn 2022. Digital security skills were imparted and improved in a fun and interactive way. There are more cyber-resilience training sessions to come in 2023. Mobility is also continuing to work with external security experts to find potential gaps and guarantee a high level of protection for its IT infrastructure.

A programme of transformation fit for the future
We live in a dynamic world full of new technologies, an increasing level of complexity, and rapidly changing customer requirements. To keep abreast of these developments and challenges, Mobility has laid out a programme of transformation. This makes it possible to optimise the implementation of strategic approaches using projects while remaining flexible. The programme of transformation and its core team has enabled projects to be prioritised strategically, dependencies to be coordinated, and the required staff to be deployed efficiently and effectively. One of the results of the programme of transformation is the updating of offers and rates that Mobility implemented in autumn.

User satisfaction is high and still increasing
At the end of the day, car sharing only works if customers like the service and recommend it to others. To gauge customer sentiment, Mobility uses the standardised, cross-sector net promoter score (NPS) method. It demonstrates that Mobility users are highly satisfied and loyal. Furthermore, in 2022 satisfaction was up by four points on the previous year – an excellent score which we hope to improve even more.

Mobility modernises its offers and prices
To keep up with the times and changing customer requirements, Mobility updated its offers and rates in November 2022. This makes car sharing fair and helps it meet the community’s needs. In the same stroke, it secures the cooperative’s business model into the future. Longer journeys are now more attractively priced thanks to day packages, while short journeys are on average slightly more expensive. The annual subscription has been replaced with a monthly subscription, thus offering more flexibility. It is also worthwhile for members of the cooperative to switch to a mobilityMEMBER offer, as they will receive discounts on reservations longer than 72 hours three times per year. The offers are available to both new users and existing customers.

A new offer for young customers
Mobility’s new offer mobilityYOUNG is aimed at young users in particular. For people under the age of 28, the monthly subscription costs will be waived after a lifetime membership fee is paid and they can also drive on the best terms (like members of the cooperative). By doing this, Mobility is aiming to offer young customers an easy entry point into the world of car sharing and to convince them of the benefits of sustainable mobility before they buy their first private car.

Smartphones as car keys
Since July 2022, all vehicles in the Mobility fleet can be locked and unlocked via a smartphone’s Bluetooth connection. This feature was first introduced for free-floating cars in Basel two years ago. However, due to the complex architecture of the Mobility software, further development and tests were required to expand it to the entire fleet. All the better then, that customers now have a third set of keys, beside their Mobility Card and Swisspass.

A unique employment culture
Mobility has 225 permanent employees who are all working to make car sharing better and to help it to meet customers’ requirements. For the majority of employees, it is more than just a job – they see a great sense of purpose in what they do. The combination of flexible working hours, favourable social benefits and financial contributions to public transport tickets produces a unique employment culture. You can find out more about what our employees have to say in this video.

Financial Report (abridged version)
Mobility celebrated its 25th birthday last year and, fortuitously for the occasion, its number of customers surpassed a quarter of a million (261’000) for the first time. Demand for car sharing has reintensified since remote working stopped being mandatory in February 2022. Among other things, this led to a 4 per cent increase in Mobility’s turnover to CHF 83.9 million. The cooperative reported an annual profit of CHF 1.4 million for 2022. The result is significantly lower than in the previous year (CHF 2.8 million) but better than expected and can therefore be regarded as a success. 

Car sharing specialists are no exception from the effects of global crises. Accordingly, Mobility was faced with significantly higher prices for fuel, energy and procuring vehicles in 2022. An increase in the number of cars being damaged also resulted in more being spent on vehicle maintenance. Delivery delays for electric cars and charging stations further complicated matters. Last but not least, Mobility invested in expanding its electric vehicle fleet and IT infrastructure, as well as in research projects such as V2X Suisse, which is investigating the potential of bidirectional charging. A significant proportion of this year’s investment is also going into electric cars and charging stations so that – as planned – Mobility cars can drive emission-free from 2030. In addition to this, Mobility is working hard to improve its customer experience so that car sharing can become even more digital and intuitive.

Cooperative Governance
In 2022, the conference of delegates was once again held in person after the interruption due to the pandemic. The event took place in Olten where participants were able to vote electronically for the first time. They bade farewell to Sabine Kilgus, a member of the Board of Directors for many years, and elected Rebecca Karbaumer, an environmental scientist with experience in policy, real estate and car sharing/micromobility to take her place.