In smaller cities, Mr. Harms said, MOIA could offer an inexpensive form of public transportation, even though rivals like Uber
and Didi Chuxing, a Chinese ride-hailing service, are already well established in many of these locations.
“The biggest skill you have to have is the ability to change.”
So he packed up and took his team to new digs in Berlin, where increasingly urgent attempts to tap into a growing tech scene
are part of German carmakers’ efforts to ride a digital wave sweeping the industry — before it rolls straight over them.
“The big question is always, Do we car manufacturers learn to become tech companies
more quickly than a tech company learns to be an automotive player?”
Non-German carmakers have readily embraced Silicon Valley through partnerships and investment deals.
“The future of Germany as an industrial nation depends on how companies succeed in bringing the manufacturing
and digital worlds together,” said Frank Ridder, research leader for Germany, Austria and Switzerland for Gartner, a technology research firm.
“The whole mobility market — transportation as a service — is just at the beginning,” Mr. Harms said
Daimler also owns Car2Go, a short-term car rental service; Blacklane, an upmarket ride-hailing app; and MyTaxi, Europe’s largest taxi-hailing service.
