Share Now, formerly Car2Go, says it is ceasing operations in North America in February 2020.
The car-sharing service currently operates in two Canadian cities — Vancouver and Montreal. In September, the company said it was pulling operations in Calgary.
The company cited operational costs and the lack of necessary infrastructure to support new technology, like electric vehicle car-sharing, for the decision.
Earlier this year, Car2Go merged with car-share service DriveNow to form Share Now.
The company says it has more than 230,000 users in Vancouver.
“Vancouver was really very, very attractive for Car2Go,” Gordon Price of the SFU Centre for Dialogue said. “We were the car-sharing capital of North America, maybe the world. It wasn’t true in the rest of North America.
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“I think they just decided it wasn’t likely to be profitable any time soon — it never has been — so they pulled the plug.”
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The company said it will also shutter operations in London, Brussels and Florence, but continue to operate in 18 other European cities.
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Evo Car Share, Share Now’s direct competitor in Vancouver, could not yet say Wednesday how it will respond to the sudden shift in the car sharing market.
“It’s brand new news, and we’re still trying to digest it and figure out how to respond,” Tai Silvey said. “We’re still processing what we can do in the market to help fill the void.”
Price said the focus will now shift to Evo and other car sharing companies like Modo and ZipCar to see whether they can pick up the slack and make a profit.
— With files from Catherine Urquhart and Nadia Stewart
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