Press Coverage

German chauffeur service Blacklane will be launching a Mandarin portal on Baidu-backed travel site Qunar in mid January.

In 2011 — after his tenure at BCG — [CEO Jens] Wohltorf started Blacklane, which focuses on collaborating with local professional drivers and allows passengers to schedule a pick-up via an app or on its website.

Online chauffeur-booking service Blacklane is hoping to capitalize on China’s lucrative outbound tourism market through a recently-announced partnership with the country’s largest travel search engine: Baidu-owned Qunar.

The ease of use of well-designed apps, ubiquity of smart phones and highly competitive pricing is slowly, but very surely, going to change the on-demand taxi business on a global basis forever. Traditional cab companies need to innovate or be left behind.

Historically, owning a car was a status symbol that signified freedom and wealth, but now it seems that we're falling out of love with car ownership, and new technology is a big reason why.