Quote:
Originally Posted by Changing City
I don't think they're pulling out of Vancouver because Uber and Lyft are setting up. It's a broader problem - until the fall they were operating in Denver, Austin, Portland, Calgary, Chicago, Montreal, New York, Seattle, Washington D.C. as well as Vancouver - and I'm guessing they all had rideshare. Unlike Uber and Lyft they had a business model that was based on making a return on their capital. It's hard to do that in markets that rely on offering a heavily subsidized (loss making) service in the hope of getting an operational monopoly. Existing rideshare operations aren't sustainable at the prices they charge, but the operators have been able to raise billions to cover their losses. The car share operators weren't willing to operate on that basis.
With Zipcar, Modo and Evo continuing to operate in Vancouver, it's not like car share is disappearing - just one of the businesses (and the one that was facing greatest change anyway, with no more Smart cars in the fleet in future).
|
In general you could say that they did well in markets alongside ride share but it would probably need more detailed breakdowns of the markets.
Vancouver having the largest North American Car2Go vehicle count versus all those other cities might have not happened with ride share. (Especially if you add in Evo with approx 1500, Zip 200 and Modo 600)
The former Car2Go regional director said there are only single market margins and that Vancouver was profitable.
Threaded Mode