It is a milestone on the way to more environmentally friendly mobility in Hanover: MOIA raised the starting signal for fully electric ridepooling on August 21. Hanover becomes the largest German city where emission-free ridepooling is available in the entire city area.
The premiere ride in MOIA +6 in the capital of Lower Saxony was shared by Thomas Hermann, Mayor of the City of Hannover and Jens-Michael May, CEO of MOIA Operations Germany GmbH. Starting on Friday, the golden-yellow vehicles are available to all Hanoverians as an environmentally friendly, locally emission-free alternative to the car and as a supplement to public transport.
Jens-Michael May, CEO of MOIA Operations: “After the corona-related break, we are restarting operations with new vehicles. We are converting our fleet 100 percent to electric, two years earlier than planned. With our MOIA vehicles, we are offering Hanoverians an offer that can compete with private cars in terms of comfort and availability. Electric mobility will now be available to everyone in Hanover. Anyone who uses MOIA drives comfortably, affordably and environmentally friendly through the city”.
Belit Onay, Mayor of Hanover: “Hanover is working intensively on a turnaround in urban mobility to make city traffic more environmentally friendly, safer and quieter across the whole city. The key elements are a strong, emission-free public transport system, a good bicycle infrastructure and complementary, alternative mobility concepts. Therefore, I am delighted that the MOIA fleet will soon be fully electric in the city. Together, we will take another step towards our goal”.
Restart with a new vehicle: MOIA +6
Up to six people share a ride with golden-yellow MOIA +6. The vehicle stands for environmental friendliness thanks to the electric drivetrain as well as for absolute comfort. It has a generous space concept with free-standing seats, fast internet, and a USB port. It was developed together with Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Volkswagen Osnabrück. The vehicle has a range of more than 300 kilometres (WLTP) and can be charged up to 80 percent within 30 minutes. For the start of operations, MOIA will initially deploy up to 40 vehicles and flexibly adapt the fleet size to the demand.
For operations in Hanover MOIA will transfer the proven Hamburg safety and hygiene concept: A mask is mandatory for the MOIA passengers, the cabin will be separated from the driver’s area by a foil and pooling will be limited to five individuals.
New hub at Vahrenwalder Straße
With the restart of operations in Hanover, employees return from short-time work. At the same time, the hub at Vahrenwalder Straße has officially opened. The site, with an area of 6,500 square metres, offers capacity for around 110 MOIA vehicles including the necessary charging infrastructure. Around 100 drivers and eight employees responsible for administrative activities, including like driver management, operations management and service, work around the hub. Office space and rooms for the employees have been set up in an old water tower on the site, which was considered the largest water tower in Europe when it was completed in the year 1911. The previous hub in Podbielskistraße was closed after the relocation to the new hub.
