Going, going, car2go will be gone from the region in 2020

Share Now, the German company that was formerly car2go, announced Wednesday that it will be pulling its car-sharing service out of the North American market, effective February 29, 2020. We have been writing about the service since 2011, and many of our readers say it helped them live without owning a car.

The company cited “the volatile state of the global mobility landscape,” and “the rising infrastructure complexities facing North American transportation today - such as a rapidly evolving competitive mobility landscape, the lack of necessary infrastructure to support new technology (including electric vehicle car share) and rising operating costs,” as factors for the shutdown. Car2go will also be vacating London, Brussels, and Florence.

There were more than 800 of the little blue and white vehicles moving throughout DC and Arlington, according to the Washington Business Journal, and it had a positive impact on driving culture in the region. In 2016, DCist reported on a study that showed each car2go vehicle helped take up to seven cars off the road.

A lot of locals are sad to see the service leave. Here’s what a few of them had to say:

Colin Hughes said,

I think this is emblematic of city governments failure to support new mobility options. DDOT still charges pennies a day ($35/yr) to residents who want to store private cars in precious public space, but far more in fees to a company like Car2Go that wants to make small, efficient cars available to the entire public.

Hannah Morris would even consider buying one of the tiny cars:

I’m a very active user of the service…and I’m pretty devastated by this news. I loved using it, great customer service, user-friendly, and empowering to zip around DC and then be able to leave your car wherever. I know I will miss it..and would even consider buying one of the cars if they are selling.

Jesse Rauch said the service was helpful for entrepreneurs:

Car2Go is a huge help to me and my karaoke business - it’s often been the best solution for me to move equipment around town. It’s a last mile option with transparent pricing (vs. Lyft/Uber’s variable pricing).”

Tom Metcalf added,

I work in DC about three miles from the Metro and usually commute via Metrorail and a Brompton. But when plans change, I’ve usually been able to find a car2go about 10 minutes away by bike, and the Brompton could fit nicely in the SmartCar “trunk.” car2go greatly improved my commuting flexibility and adaptability alongside my bike and the bus.

WAMU’s Martin Austermuhle shared his experience with the service,

And there was the time I was convinced (and still kinda am) that Car2go was used by people delivering weed around town, since so many cars just smelled like it. And once I forgot to end a trip, and woke up to something like $200 in charges. (Thankfully rescinded.)

— Martin Austermuhle (@maustermuhle) December 18, 2019

This is why Car2go leaving could be a big deal: a study from a few years back found it replaced many cars that residents would otherwise have bought. https://t.co/WsIpl2IdnV

— Martin Austermuhle (@maustermuhle) December 18, 2019

We also asked our contributors to weigh in on the news:

Editorial Board member Dan Reed says he’s going to miss the reliability and flexibility:

Car2go operated only inside DC (and later Arlington), but if you lived next to DC, say in Silver Spring or Friendship Heights or Mount Rainier, you’d usually find a cluster of car2gos parked right at the city line. What it offered me was reliability and flexibility: if the Metro was closed or if there was trackwork or if I ended up somewhere far from the Metro or a frequent bus route or if Uber was doing surge pricing, I knew car2go could get me home.

They were also very helpful for all the little trips that come up in life, when you might need help carrying things, but don’t need a regular-sized car for. I’ll always remember moving my entire office in 2014 - then a CPU, one box, and a cactus - from U Street to Franklin Square in a car2go, and parallel parking one of those Smart cars near my office downtown as a family of tourists and an entire ground-floor conference room at Booz Allen Hamilton watched.

Here’s to car2go, a small car that made a big difference in how I used the city and pissed off my neighbors in Shepherd Park DC when I parked in front of their houses. You will be missed.

Nick Sementelli says the little cars were great for special trips:

Many of my friends who own cars don’t use them for day-to-day commuting, but still see them as necessary for the occasional, special-use trip (running errands that require transporting large items, weekend day trips, getting to transit-inaccessible locations). I’ve always countered that car2go serves me exceedingly well for those needs at a fraction of the cost of owning, maintaining, and storing my own car.

Rideshare has provided another option for some of those trips, but I found that car2go’s half-hour, hour, and multi-hour packages were generally a much better deal for trips that exceed about 20 minutes. I could generally always find one within a five minute or less walk of my house, and the ability to leave them almost anywhere allowed me incredible flexibility as well.

And Kelli Raboy says car2go helped her family live car-free:

We brought our son home from the hospital in a car2go. (We took a car2go to the hospital too.) Since then, car2go and its competitors have played a huge role in helping us make our car-free life with a baby work. When we can’t get somewhere via walking, biking, or transit, I feel so much more comfortable with my husband at the wheel, instead of a stranger driving a taxi or Uber.

Andrew Dupuy agrees:

Car2go undoubtedly allowed me to remain car-free in DC for seven years. Had it not been there, I would have given in sooner. The one-way rentals were useful in a way Zipcar want. I was happier to support that company as opposed to the questionable Uber and Lyft. DC did it right, with liberal parking regulations (including RPP zones) — something other cities messed up — and an easy-to-understand zone (basically all of DC, minus a few federal areas like the Mall). I also used it when traveling to other car2go cities, in lieu of renting a car.

Since moving to Baltimore, I’ve really been missing car2go (or something like it). I haven’t been using it as much in DC since I moved, but it still leaves a hole in the mobility landscape there.

Matt Johnson’ offered an alternative:

I will miss car2go. I live car-free in Dupont, and the ability to grab a shared car to make trips that I couldn’t do on transit or bike made life a bit easier.

I did recently discover a new service, Penske Dash, that just launched in DC about two months ago. I’ve used the service several times now, and have been pleased with their customer service. So far, they don’t have a ward 9 permit from DDOT, but my understanding is that they’re working on that. They do have the equivalent park-anywhere permit in Arlington. Right now in DC, you can only park them in off-street parking lots and garages where they have an arrangement. Luckily, there’s one two blocks from my apartment.

So, if car2go is going to leave a hole in your life, be sure to check out Penske Dash

As did Nicholas Burger:

There’s also Free2Move, which I suspect many people know about. I’ve not used it, since when they first started in DC they had a confusing business model (and app that showed lots of mobility services but theoretically also let you reserve their branded cars), and I could never get the app to actually let me login, But I just re-signed up, and I expect that will be my car2go replacement. I will miss the tiny, easy-to-park-anywhere cars, though.

Contributor Daniel Warwick says:

Carshare, like bikeshare, has a ton of positive externalities and help people get rid of personal cars. LA DOT supports Blue LA electric carshare, maybe we should think about that in our region.

Readers: What do you think about car2go leaving?