Our pilot Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the German state of Baden-Württemberg, located in the southwest of the country. Known for its strong automotive industry, it is home to the headquarters of Mercedes-Benz, Bosch and Porsche. In spite of its industrial character, the city blends modern industry with vast green spaces, forests, vineyards, and historic architecture. Stuttgart is also a cultural hub, featuring renowned museums, theaters, and festivals.
Stuttgart’s mobility system is a well-developed network that combines public transportation, cycling, walking, and car use. It also promotes sustainable mobility through a variety of sharing offers, pedestrian-friendly infrastructure, and extensive electric mobility to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. Stuttgart’s topography is certainly unique in Germany. The city center is located inside a valley, which has led to dense urbanization and limited space for all mobility options and other more sustainable uses of public space. To maintain quality of life, the municipality focuses on providing reliable, affordable, and equitable access to all means of mobility while reducing the traffic-caused environmental impact.
Why is Stuttgart part of the STEER-NWE project?
Stuttgart can be seen as a pioneer in promoting and using electric vehicles and car-sharing. However, the city faces big challenges regarding the influence of urban planning instruments on promoting sustainable mobility. Urban planning instruments such as development plans and urban development contracts can help encourage the use of sustainable mobility modes like electric carsharing. The project STEER-NWE offers Stuttgart the best opportunity to systematically introduce models of electric car-sharing in the planning of residential projects. In recent years, the city has successfully developed strategies to promote and expand car-sharing and charging infrastructure throughout its urban area.
Bringing these two mobility offers together has turned out to be a big challenge. Making electric car-sharing more accessible and visible for the residents can lead to a more environmentally friendly mobility behaviour in Stuttgart. With STEER-NWE, they want to invest in transnational cooperation and build new relations with cities and organizations in Europe by exchanging best practices, sharing findings and experiences, and finding solutions to tackle challenges to expand electric car-sharing in the beautiful Stuttgart.
What will the German pilot discover?
Stuttgart will pilot the deployment of electric car-sharing infrastructure at four preselected residential projects. These are: Am Rotweg, Zukunft Münster 2050, Quartier Böckinger Strasse and Riverside Living - Inselstrasse. These sites are part of larger urban transformation projects that align with Stuttgart’s strategy for sustainable urban development. The pilots will focus on systematically integrating electric carsharing into housing developments, including cooperative housing, social housing, and sustainable neighborhoods, where such solutions have not been applied before.
The pilots aim to assess and refine the best ways to incorporate sustainable mobility solutions into new housing projects. With the pilots, they want to bring electric carsharing closer to the people, where they live and where they start their journeys, making it more accessible and reducing obstacles for their use. For people who only use cars occasionally, car-sharing is a cheap and comfortable alternative to owning a vehicle. The pilot projects will help us to find joint solutions with all involved stakeholders: construction companies, cooperatives, carsharing companies, the providers of charging infrastructure, and the users.
What does e-carsharing mean to Stuttgart?
Stuttgart supports the expansion of carsharing as a contribution to sustainable mobility, urban planning, and climate change. The car-sharing strategy of the city aims at providing a comprehensive and easily accessible car-sharing service in all districts of Stuttgart. The first carsharing stations with charging points have been in operation since 2024.
The city is continuing to drive the expansion forward, planning additional locations and promoting car-sharing projects in residential areas. Electric Carsharing also contributes to achieving Stuttgart’s target of climate neutrality by 2035.