Lime Ends Car-Sharing Program

Neutron Holdings Inc. is pulling the plug on its LimePod car-sharing service, which it launched last November in Seattle.

The company, best known for its bright green Lime rental bicycles and scooters, says it wasn’t able to find an electric vehicle partner for the car-sharing program. High operating costs and tight margins also contributed to the decision, according to media reports.

Lime started the Seattle service with a fleet of Fiat 500 minicars, with plans to eventually convert to an all-electric network. Users could book, access and pay for the cars via a smartphone app, paying $1 to unlock the car and 40 cents per minute to use it. Vehicles could be picked up and dropped off at any legal parking spot in the city.

Lime says some 18,000 subscribers have taken more than 200,000 trips in the first 10 months of the program. The company will begin removing the vehicles from the city next month and end the program altogether by year-end.

Lime has deployed its scooters and bikes in more than 100 cities in the U.S. and 20 international cities. The startup, which was valued at $2.4 billion earlier this year, recently topped 100 million rides worldwide.