VW's MOIA is another car company looking for the new mobility

VW's efforts to get past the stink of its diesel scandal have shifted into the car sharing realm. Called MOIA, the new stand-along brand in the Volkswagen Group will look for now mobility buzzwords. Just look at the bullets from the press release describing what MOIA will do:

• connects the car with the new mobility world
• Tailor-made transport solutions worldwide
• Leading position as mobility services provider by 2025

We tease only because today's announcement is so incredibly vague as to what MOIA is actually going to do. We know it will be based in Berlin, Germany (with projects in Hamburg, as well) and start with about 50 employees. Its new CEO is Ole Harms, who was previously VW's executive director and head of New Business and Mobility Services. The few details we can hang our hats on are that VW Group CEO Matthias Müller said that, "Even though not everyone will still own a car in future, MOIA can help make everyone a customer of our company in some way or another," and that the press release says that VW, "intends to generate a substantial share of its sales revenue from this new business by 2025." MOIA will also focus on "the pooling business," or group ride shares.

Now, if you've been paying attention to the general trend in the automotive industry towards mobility and transportation as a service, then you can make some guesses about what else MOIA will be doing: autonomous drive technology, apps that will arrange rides or short-term rental cars for you (ok, we cheated there, since the PR does say that MOIA will give you access to a car "at the touch of a button" and because VW invested in Gett), and probably some sort of electric vehicle component.

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