car2go is ditching the smart car in Seattle for Mercedes-Benz

The car2go service is synonymous with an image of a smart car — the highly compact, two-seat vehicles rented for one-way trips around town. But the company is opting to make the switch to new Mercedes-Benz models in Seattle, its most popular city in America.

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“With well over 100,000 members, Seattle is car2go’s largest U.S. location, and an overwhelming majority of our members prefer our compact Mercedes-Benz car2gos,” said car2go Regional Director David Holzer. “Our new Mercedes-Benz CLA and GLA car2go’s can carry more people more places in style, safety, and comfort.”

The 2018 CLA and GLA models are among Mercedes-Benz’s smaller cars — car2go notes they are “deceptively” compact and shorter than a Toyota Camry or Honda Civic. The cars will come with high-end gadgets such as blind spot sensors, rear-view mirror cameras, heated seats, and they can sync up with smartphones. Instead of carrying two people, they can transport up to five. They have a four-cylinder engine that gets around 37 mpg on the freeway.

The newer models started showing up in Seattle last February when car2go put 200 of them on the streets. As of this October, there are 550 of the new models in Seattle. The company expects to phase out all of its smart cars by the end of the year. It plans to “re-market” the smart cars, which means it will sell them off.

car2go in Seattle

car2go launched in Seattle in 2012 and is among a handful of similar car-sharing services in town. The services allow drivers to locate a car to rent with their smartphones. They pick them up and drop them off at dedicated parking spots around Seattle. They operate similar to the free-floating bikeshares in Seattle.

Seattleites are also familiar with Zipcar. ReachNow launched in 2016 with a fleet of BMW models. In 2016, the Seattle Department of Transportation reported that about 9,100 drivers in town have given up owning a car because of the car sharing services. Surrounding communities such as Bellevue and Kirkland are currently working to get the services to expand to their areas.

Since it launched in Seattle, the city has grown to become among car2go’s most popular cluster of customers taking 4.7 million trips, adding up to 19 million miles.

“Living in our densely populated cities continues to be expensive for many citizens,” said car2go spokesperson Chris Luvancigh said. “Car sharing is one part of the sharing economy that allows our members to spend less on transportation vs owning their own car (or second car) while retaining the ability to use a car when they need it. Car ownership – insurance, parking, fuel – continues to rise in cost and add up to a lot of money at the end of the year. Additionally, Seattle is a great market for car2go as generally its citizens are early adopters to new ideas and technology, plus have a green conscious when it comes to the environment.”

This could be why only 2,255 cars were added to Seattle streets between 2010 and 2016, yet the downtown area added 45,000 new jobs.

car2go rents out more than 750 vehicles in town (roughly 133 members to each car). Those cars have dedicated parking spots throughout the city. Though car2go’s largest fleet is in Vancouver B.C., where ridesharing services such as Lyft and Uber are currently unavailable. Vancouver was the second North American city where the company launched its service. Washington D.C., New York, and Portland are car2go’s other most used fleets.

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