Deutsche Bahn purchases CleverShuttle majority

The German railway corporation has purchased a majority stock of the electric vehicle ride-share specialists CleverShuttle. Parallel to the takeover, the partners are expanding their Leipzig facilities.

While exact numbers for the takeover were not mentioned, we do know that the Deutsche Bahn expanded their 20% of shares to a current 79%, effectively giving them control of the ride-share company. The CleverShuttle founders Bruno Ginnuth, Jan Hofmann and Slava Tschurilin will remain on board, holding 7% of shares, each.

Deutsche Bahn executive Berthold Huber added that the mobility solutions offered by CleverShuttle would provide an “attractive mobility offer” for customers, which would “ideally” complete the journey after the rail. The last-mile transport is a segment the railway operators have not effectively addressed yet, outside of connecting to local railway and bus grids.

The Leipzig location, which will be the first to be expanded by the partners and will act as a sort of HQ, will receive 45 EVs in the first step. The service will then be offered during business hours, seven days per week. Other German cities, including Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart, will then see their fleets stocked up afterwards. By the end of this year, they also plan to have launched the service in Frankfurt and Dresden.

The CleverShuttle fleet will include not only BEVs, but also hybrid and fuel cell vehicles, with the Nissan Leaf and the Toyota Mirai having filled up the majority of the order books so far. The LEVC London Taxi is also being closely considered.

electrive.net, gruenderszene.de, automobilwoche.de, deutschebahn.com (All in German)