Car2Go Coming to Calgary Edit- closing as of October 31

[Fuzz]

I don't know why you wouldn't include the zoo/science centre, or North Hill, or Foothills. You know, places you would actually want to go to. Hopefully they expand it soon.

[TorqueDog]

Our neighbourhood used to fall into the “home zone” of Car2Go, too bad that they made the home zone so small.

[calgarygeologist]

It is great to have a new option but I don't see this as being successful for long in Calgary. Their home zone is too restrictive, pricing seems to convoluted and obviously with the ongoing pandemic business will be weak until the environment changes.

[Calgary14]

Yeah I just cant see that being successful with that small of a home zone. I thought Car2Go's zone was small but this is way smaller

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I don't know why you wouldn't include the zoo/science centre, or North Hill, or Foothills. You know, places you would actually want to go to. Hopefully they expand it soon.

Nice try, Sears

[burn_this_city]

That overly compromised home zone looks like a recipe for failure. A lot of Car2go trips were people commuting to the core and home. With the scooters having decent range and area why would you choose the commie car?

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

That overly compromised home zone looks like a recipe for failure. A lot of Car2go trips were people commuting to the core and home. With the scooters having decent range and area why would you choose the commie car?

Winter?

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

That overly compromised home zone looks like a recipe for failure. A lot of Car2go trips were people commuting to the core and home. With the scooters having decent range and area why would you choose the commie car?

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Winter?

...and kids.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

However it looks like as a mobile experience the app may not be the best (at least on IOS), the reviews just hammer it. May not be a smooth interface like Car2Go was.

Well keep in mind that Car2Go was owned by this little outfit called Daimler AG. This looks like a mom and pop in comparison, and I definitely wouldn't expect it to ever be as smooth of an operation as that was.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

...and kids.

You can pack a family of four on a scooter no problem. Maybe even seven or eight.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Well keep in mind that Car2Go was owned by this little outfit called Daimler AG. This looks like a mom and pop in comparison, and I definitely wouldn't expect it to ever be as smooth of an operation as that was.

I really feel that if a business like this is going to succeed it has to be backed by a car manufacturer. I just don't see how a private enterprise can make money considering the high overhead cost of vehicle purchases/leasing, vehicle maintenance, insurance, fuel costs, parking, etc. At least with an automaker involved you could reduce the vehicle and maintenance costs significantly.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

I really feel that if a business like this is going to succeed it has to be backed by a car manufacturer. I just don't see how a private enterprise can make money considering the high overhead cost of vehicle purchases/leasing, vehicle maintenance, insurance, fuel costs, parking, etc. At least with an automaker involved you could reduce the vehicle and maintenance costs significantly.

Yeah, not many of these shared-transport ideas seem to particularly viable financially over the long-term, so they tend to need some sort of subsidy. Car2Go itself was a quasi-marketing play by Daimler to promote their SMART cars (which weren't doing too well in North America and this probably gave the cars some justification). I don't think it's a coincidence that once SMART exited the NA market, Car2Go soon followed.

[Bigtime]

Based on replies to tweets this is just an initial operating home zone, we could see expansion of it in time just like Car2Go did.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

You can pack a family of four on a scooter no problem. Maybe even seven or eight.

[Bill Bumface]

Cars are pretty expensive. A smaller launch, with a tighter home zone makes a lot of sense to get things rolling, iron out the kinks, and gauge interest in a new market.

[getbak]

Earlier today, I was looking at their website and they had a larger grey zone around the green zone, which extended down to Chinook and up to the University. It's no longer showing on there, but hopefully the zone will expand once their "beta" period is over.

[timun]

Originally Posted by timun

Very curious how big their "home zone" will be. I lived near the edge of Car2Go's; if it doesn't go at least as far south as Glenmore-ish I don't think I'd even bother.

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Here is the Calgary home zone:

Yeah, that's gonna be a 'no' from me, dawg.

Way too small a service area. Seems like they're leaving some pretty low-hanging fruit on the table, places fairly close to downtown where Car2Gos ('Car2Goes'? 'Cars2Go'?) tended to still have high turnover like Erlton, Roxboro, Rideau Park... Curious what their metrics were to make the decision about where to include and not include, it's obviously not just distance from downtown.

And not including the commercial core itself? That's... interesting. No doubt that was the sticking point with Car2Go, it just cost them too much to pay for the parking downtown, but commuters to/from downtown constituted a huge proportion of their business.

[Fuzz]

If you look at Edmonton, they have 10 cars currently. So I'm not at all surprised the area is so small with so few vehicles. And I don't really blame them. I'm sure it will expand when they can.

[timun]

How long have they been in Edmonton? Did they just recently kick off service there too, or have they been established for a while?

[Fuzz]

Not sure, I was just poking around the website. Ottawa covers a massive area.