Car-sharing service rebooting after bumpy American start
In recent years, the company Free2move set up free-floating car rental operations in such major American cities as Denver, Portland, Oregon and Columbus.
Like scooter rentals but for cars, the vehicles were spread out around each city, and drivers could book them from their phones at a moment’s notice for a few minutes or a few days. The vehicles didn’t need to be returned to any particular parking spot.
But the Stellantis Nv-owned brand, which also operates in Europe, has been learning just how challenging — and costly — this type of car-sharing business
is to operate. Free2move has outlasted many competitors in the space, and purchased another, but in recent months it pulled its fleets of mostly Jeep Renegades off the roads in all but Washington, D.C., as it looks to reset its technology and operations systems.
There were “a lot of problems that now we are recovering on, and when we will be able to deploy our own tech, it will help even more,” Free2move CEO Brigitte Courtehoux said in a recent interview.
She said the goal was to “stop the problems, stop the bleeding” by pulling the cars off the road, and then relaunch the service in more cities once issues are resolved, likely over the next six months.
Courtehoux said the problems included traffic violations, damage, theft and simply losing track of vehicles.
It’s a tough business, as other major automakers who wanted to get into car sharing also found out.
Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. shut down similar services several years ago. And Share Now, the service formerly known as Car2go and previously owned by automakers Daimler AG and BMW AG, exited North America in 2019 and was bought by Free2move in 2022. The service continues to operate in 15 major European cities.
Courtehoux said some of Free2move’s main competitors now are German-based companies Miles and Sixt, and the Italian firm Enjoy. She believes the convenience of free-floating car rentals can translate into success.
“If you do it well, it will be a huge differentiator, right? Because having the car 300 meters from you is a gamechanger,” Courtehoux said.