Car2Go to roll out family-friendly vehicles this year
You’ll be able to take children in Car2Go car-sharing cars by the end of the year.
The car-sharing service has relied on a fleet of two-person Smart cars since it began operations in Montreal in 2013. However, since car-safety regulations don’t recommend anyone weighing less than 80 pounds sit in the front passenger seat, children are not permitted to ride in them. Those using car-sharing services must instead use Communauto’s AutoMobile service if they want travel with their children.
Jérémi Lavoie, Car2Go’s general manager for Montreal, said customers have been anxious to be able to take their children with them when they rent cars.
“It’s definitely the biggest request we have received,” Lavoie said.
Lavoie said the entire fleet of 450 vehicles is being replaced over the next few weeks with 340 new model Smart fortwo cars, while 110 of the older cars will remain in circulation. He said it will cost the same price to rent the newer cars.
Later this year, the company will introduce five-person cars. The car-sharing company, which is a division of Daimler, will have Mercedes-Benz cars as five-seaters, likely the GLA or CLA models, Lavoie said.
Those models will include harnesses to attach car seats for infants and small children. However, Lavoie did not know when those cars will be in circulation.
Missing from the fleet, however, is electric cars. While Car2Go operates all over the world, and has fully electric fleets in some cities, electric cars are not in the company’s plans for Montreal for now. This despite a push by Montreal to have a fully electric car-sharing fleet of 1,000 vehicles by the year 2020.
Lavoie said so far, there are not enough public charging pods available to make it worthwhile to have an electric fleet. “It’s not possible right now to operate profitably with electric cars for now,” he said.
In the meantime, Communauto continues to buy electric cars for its car-sharing service, and relies on private charging pods to recharge the batteries.