Daimler's Car2Go to close in Toronto, claims regs render it 'inoperable'
It'll still exist everywhere else it's currently set up.
Daimler's Car2Go service has been in Toronto since 2012, but it'll close its doors in Ontario's capital at the end of May.
Car2Go will stop its Toronto-based car sharing service at the end of May. The reason is a new car-sharing pilot program that the Daimler-owned service says will render it "inoperable." Car2Go has approximately 80,000 members in the Toronto area, who have access to a number of Daimler vehicles, including the Smart Fortwo and some Mercedes-Benz models.
Car2Go left San Diego in 2016, which was the first place it launched in the US.
Toronto's new free-floating car-sharing pilot program will restrict places where residents can leave shared vehicles, eliminating approximately 10,000 spots from being used for car sharing purposes. It will also require car-sharing operations to pay a CAD1,500 (about USD1,200) permit for each vehicle it has on the road.
The pilot also limits each car-sharing company to 500 vehicles (Car2Go has 350), and while cars can still be parked in residential parking zones, zones with 95 percent subscription will not allow car-sharing parking. Some criticism of Car2Go and similar services involves these cars preventing residents from parking closer to their own homes.
When Car2Go launched in Toronto in 2012, its members had to retrieve and drop off vehicles from "Green P" municipal parking lots, but later it started allowing members to pick up and drop off cars from standard on-street parking, including residential areas.
Other car-sharing services will continue operation, and Car2Go will remain active in all its other markets. Car2Go originally threatened to shutter its Toronto operations in Feburary, as it and the city have been going back and forth trying to find a middle ground for car-sharing regulations.
