The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 2008–2020
Car2go invented free-floating car sharing, then abandoned North America
Daimler's car2go — pioneer of free-floating car sharing — quit North America in February 2020, leaving Seattle with no free-floating service at all.
car2go · Share Now · Daimler · BMW · 2019-12
What happened
car2go launched in Ulm, Germany in October 2008 — Daimler's bet that city residents would rent Smart cars by the minute, parked anywhere, unlocked by app. It grew into the world's biggest free-floating car-sharing service; in 2019 Daimler merged it with BMW's DriveNow into a joint venture called Share Now, with over four million members and 14,000 vehicles.
North America never worked at scale. car2go had already pulled out of Austin, Calgary, Denver, Portland and Chicago in late 2019; on 18 December 2019 Share Now announced it was leaving its five remaining North American cities — Montreal, New York, Seattle, Washington DC and Vancouver — plus London, Brussels and Florence, effective 29 February 2020.
The company blamed the 'volatile state of the global mobility landscape' and the rising cost of North American infrastructure. It was not alone: GM's Maven and Ford's Chariot shut down the same year, and Seattle — where car2go had been first in late 2012 — was left with no free-floating car-sharing service at all.
Why it happened
- The economics never beat the ride-hail subsidy war: Uber and Lyft's artificially low fares made per-minute car sharing uncompetitive, and fleets parked on city streets cost more than cars in motion.
- The owners chose Europe at the merger: members and 14,000 vehicles sat in 18 European cities — the merger was where the owners decided the category could pay, and North America was not it.
- The infrastructure math: free-floating needs dense coverage and street-parking deals, and the fleet faced pressure to go electric — costs Share Now said it could not justify for North America.
The lesson
A pioneer can be right about the future and wrong about the business: car2go proved free-floating sharing could run, but only dense European cities made it pay — and the owners chose them.
Aftermath
The exit ended the free-floating chapter of North American car sharing: within a year of the announcement, Seattle had gone from three free-floating services to none, left with station-based Zipcar and peer-to-peer Getaround and Turo. Share Now continued in 18 European cities, but the wave of 2019 exits — Maven, Chariot, LimePod, car2go — closed the era that car2go itself had opened in 2012.
Sources
- The Verge, 18 December 2019 — Share Now (car2go) leaving North America and three European cities (announcement 18 December 2019; exit effective 29 February 2020; five North American cities: Montreal, New York, Seattle, Washington DC, Vancouver; plus London, Brussels and Florence)
- TechCrunch, 18 December 2019 — Share Now, the Daimler-BMW car-sharing service, exits North America and three European cities (reasons: volatile global mobility landscape and North American infrastructure costs)
- GeekWire, 18 December 2019 — Car2Gone: Share Now shuts North America, leaving Seattle without free-floating car sharing (car2go first in Seattle in late 2012; Seattle goes from three free-floating services to none; Maven and Chariot also shut in 2019)
- Wikipedia — Car2Go (launched Ulm, Germany, October 2008; October 2019 exits from Austin, Calgary, Denver, Portland and Chicago; Share Now had over four million members and more than 14,000 vehicles in 18 European cities)
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