What’s Next for Minnesota Carshare?

Last Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, HOURCAR and Evie Carshare services ended operations in the Twin Cities. This came a week after the organization announced it would sunset due to financial difficulties and changes in funding. 

Thousands of Twin Cities residents rely on this service to reach family and friends, get to medical appointments, and meet daily needs and opportunities. Carshare is a critical link in a transportation system that works for everyone, supports transit, and makes it more affordable for people to get around as the price of private car ownership continues to rise. 

Our Streets strongly supports this critical transportation service. We are working alongside elected officials, former carshare staff, and community members to save carshare in the Twin Cities, make it sustainable long-term, and expand other shared mobility options like bike share. 

HOURCAR and Evie are both carshare services that gave Twin Cities residents a way to get around without owning a car.

HOURCAR launched in Minneapolis and St. Paul in 2005 as a car-share program of the Center for Energy and Environment, then became an independent nonprofit in 2017. Members could reserve a HOURCAR vehicle from a neighborhood hub and return it there when they were done.  

Evie Carshare followed in 2022, launching with support from the City of Saint Paul, which initially contributed $725,000, and Minneapolis, which contributed $325,000. Evie was an all-electric carshare program that offered “free-floating” service, meaning people could pick up or drop off their car anywhere within a set 35-square-mile zone in Minneapolis and St. Paul. This let people take flexible, one-way trips and find cars in their neighborhood. 

In 2026, efforts to expand the Evie Home Zone included planned service areas in North Minneapolis and Eastside St. Paul, with additional charging infrastructure that supports the service. 

Both services were operating at an affordable rate, with some of the additional operating costs being supported by philanthropic grants, corporate giving and partnerships, federal grants, and local funding, especially from the City of Saint Paul, which was heavily invested in the program and held the leases for the electric Evie vehicles. 

HOURCAR and Evie Carshare are economical, equitable, and convenient transportation options that we can’t afford to lose.

Carshare programs are a critical part of our region’s efforts to create a transportation system that works for everyone. Many users and residents have spoken out in support of maintaining this critical service. 

Of the program’s users, 42% identify as people of color, and 46% identify as low-income. This service made it possible for these community members to move around a region built primarily for those with cars, a financial barrier to many in our communities. 

For many community members choosing to go car-light or car-free, HOURCAR and Evie Carshare gave them the confidence and ability to make the cost-effective and climate-friendly choice of not owning a car, which costs on average more than $12,000 annually. 

In 2025 alone, Evie Carshare saved its users an estimated $14.2 million in costs that they would otherwise have paid to own and maintain a personal car, a huge benefit compared to the relatively inexpensive cost of the program. In addition, HOURCAR and Evie Carshare reduced greenhouse gas emissions by over 7,600 tons that same year, helping protect our environment and reduce transportation’s impact on climate change.

Our region has significantly increased investments in transit and biking and walking infrastructure, making it easier, more accessible, and more affordable for the 1 in 3 Minnesotans who don’t or can’t drive.

But some parts of our cities, times of day, or places beyond Minneapolis and Saint Paul are still difficult or impossible to reach without a car, and HOURCAR and Evie Carshare filled that critical gap. Program users identified uses beyond commuting to and from work. Common trips included reaching medical appointments, social gatherings, buying household goods or groceries, or traveling outside the city. 

People now have few affordable options to reach these places, especially those who have relied on this service since 2005.

As it currently stands, the Evie and HOURCAR vehicles are being stored in a lot in Saint Paul.

The City of Saint Paul continues to hold the lease for the Evie vehicles, while the bank may repossess the HOURCAR vehicles and the facility that maintains them. The organization’s staff have been laid off. 

HOURCAR’s data didn’t disappear with the service; roughly 10 million rows of anonymized trip, vehicle, and financial records went to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies, where researchers can use them to guide how future carshare programs expand, where their service areas should be, and how they should operate.

Our Streets and our partners will work to capture additional learnings from staff, board members, elected officials, and service users to better inform future carshare programs. 

Several ideas have emerged to save carshare and improve other shared mobility services.

Carsharing—and bike sharing—is a natural extension of public transit, especially for the people who can least afford a car and would benefit from more coordinated services. 

The Metropolitan Council, or Met Council, and Metro Transit already operate Metro micro, an on-demand transit service like Uber and Lyft in areas not well served by traditional transit. The Met Council also operates Metro Mobility services for those with disabilities, contracting to other transportation providers to operate a fleet of accessible buses and vans. 

Carshare and bikeshare are public services, and it makes sense for Met Council to operate them. Met Council operating the service could offer major benefits, including insurance advantages, connectivity to transit services, and the ability to scale the service cost-effectively. While setting up and reviving these services won’t be simple, we’ve learned from HOURCAR, Evie, and Nice Ride. The design of these programs will ultimately define their success and whether they can be sustainably scaled to reach more users. 

Our Streets will continue to engage decision makers, stakeholders, and service users on the best path forward. 

State Representative Katie Jones (DFL, 61A) has been leading discussions across elected and appointed officials across several jurisdictions, including Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Hennepin and Ramsey County, the Metropolitan Council, and other philanthropic and institutional entities. This work is critical both to find bridge funding to continue affordable transportation services in the short term and to lay the groundwork for a more sustainable model for the future.

HOURCAR and Evie’s closure leaves the Twin Cities with two clear lessons. 

First, the service didn’t end for lack of demand. Thousands of members relied on carshare to get to work, visit family, access healthcare, and stay connected to their communities. That need hasn’t gone away, and we need solutions to meet those trips, which are foundational to the region’s economic development and mobility and to the personal quality of life of those who don’t own cars. 

Second, carshare—just like buses, trains, roads, and bridges—is a public good and deserves the same public subsidy other modes receive. No form of transportation pays for itself through user fees. Roads and bridges are the clearest example: drivers cover only a small share of maintenance costs through taxes and fees. We heavily subsidize private car ownership. 

If we want a connected, economically thriving region, we need to give shared mobility steady public support. We need to make the program sustainable, expand the number of people it can serve, and maximize benefits for everyone. 

Take Action

The most important thing you can do is share your carshare story with the decision-makers who control its funding. We need to keep momentum on these calls to build pressure to act before and during the legislative session. 

Tell your city council member, county commissioner, state legislators, and Met Council officials how carshare helps you get to work, run errands, or live without a car, and why it matters to you and your neighborhood. Personal stories show elected officials that shared mobility is essential public infrastructure, especially when affordability is paramount. A short email or phone call makes a real difference, so reach out today and ask them to commit to steady public funding for carshare. 

Stay in the loop on carshare and get involved in organizing.