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ReachNow, the car-sharing service owned by The BMW Group, announced Wednesday that it's shutting down and ending its car-sharing and ride-hailing services in Portland "immediately." It will close its Portland and Seattle offices in the coming months.
ReachNow had 350 vehicles operating in Portland, company spokesperson Laura Gonia says in an email. It had 75 employees in Seattle and Portland.
“Our entire staff will be ultimately impacted as we wind down the whole company,” she writes. “Today, about 50 percent of our staff was impacted.”
The company is joining YOUR NOW, a new European joint venture that seeks to be the future of getting around in cities. It involves more than a dozen other mobility services, including ParkMobile, ChargeNow, car2go, ReachNow and moovel.
The rebranded REACH NOW "will now focus on building a multimodal platform" rather than renting cars, according to the announcement. SHARE NOW, another company under YOUR NOW, will be its sole car-sharing arm.
The closure comes after ReachNow and the German auto company Daimler announced on March 28 that they would be merging car2go, Daimler's ride-sharing service, with ReachNow. The ride-share merger was supposed to have been one of the steps toward helping Portland innovate its way out of its traffic problem. (DriveNow and car2go merged into SHARE NOW.)
ReachNow will refund the $15 signup fee for new members who signed up on or after June 1, 2019, according to the announcement, and members should expect to be contacted by the company soon. Members who are currently using ReachNow rentals should end their trip as they normally would.
The closure won't affect service for car2go, according to the announcement.