EVCard: Pioneering Car-Sharing in China

This case describes the earliest time-sharing leasing project in China, EVCARD. As the sale and commercial application of new energy vehicles in China had just begun, ordinary-user awareness of new energy vehicles was very low, and there was no successful precedent for the commercial application of new energy in China to draw lessons from. This case explores how EVCARD used lean entrepreneurship to inspect foreign projects, analyze market opportunities, build a start-up team, carry out feasibility studies, and created a new energy vehicle from scratch. EVCARD. The case describes in detail how, in going from 0 to 1, EVCARD built a minimum viable product using closed, small-scale testing, continuous iterative optimization, and then replication to expand from Shanghai to 64 cities nationwide, achieved a presence in 13,000+ locations, invested in 42,000+ vehicles, reached more than 400,000 registered members and nearly 100,000 orders per day, and became China’s first success story in time-share rentals of new energy vehicles. Through study of EVCARD’s entrepreneurial path, trainees can learn how to build their competitive advantage in a changing market environment despite limited knowledge and experience, while applying rapid learning and rapid iteration.