car2go Replaces All-Electric Vehicles with Gas-Powered Cars

In San Diego, car2go is switching its all-electric vehicle fleet to gas-powered cars, according to a report by the San Diego Union-Tribune.

car2go is getting rid of its all-electric vehicles due to a lack of charging stations, says the report.

“It’s a lesson to all of us that we have to work harder to build the infrastructure necessary to support electric vehicles and other transportation modes,” City Councilman Todd Gloria told the Union-Tribune.

car2go will make the switch to gas vehicles starting May 1; it should be complete within a month, says the report. When the carsharing company launched in 2011 in San Diego, it was the only North American City with an all-electric fleet.

A federally subsidized nonprofit called Ecotality was supposed to install 1,000 charging stations across San Diego, says the report. Currently, there are only 400 of those stations in place because the company declared bankruptcy in 2013.

“We're just not able to keep the cars charged, and people aren't able to charge them on their own," Dacyl Armendariz, a car2go spokeswoman, told the Union-Tribune. "We're still committed to electric vehicles — it works in some of our cities in Europe where they have more robust charging infrastructure. We just don't have the infrastructure we need here to make it work now."

Many of car2go’s San Diego customers worried that their all-electric carsharing vehicle would run out of charge before they finished their trip, according to the report.

Click here for the full Union-Tribune report.