In the last decades, free-floating car sharing (FFCS) has become a fast-growing mode of mobility service and promoted in many cities across the world. While lots of researchers have paid increasing attention to FFCS in recent years, little is known regarding the characterization and evolution of FFCS in Chinese cities, where car sharing services are gaining more and more popularity. In this work, we focus on two Chinese cities: Chengdu and Changchun, both of which have witnessed the shutdown of FFCS service and its replacement with station-based car sharing (SBCS). We rebuild 743,796 trips using public data from the smartphone application of a car sharing service, then explore the characteristics and spatiotemporal distribution of FFCS usage, and identify the differences compared to those in Europe and North America. Furthermore, we conduct a comparative analysis of the service coverage, demand spatiotemporal distribution and usage patterns of car sharing services before and after the shutdown of FFCS. Results show that, the shutdown of FFCS did not cause a severe disruption to the car sharing service. Instead, the introduction of SBCS effectively inherited and accommodated the travel demand. This work underscores the importance of considering the unique characteristics of China’s FFCS services when develop operation strategies and demonstrates that a well-designed SBCS could emerge as a viable alternative.