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The volunteer food project in Rotherhithe has provided hundreds of prepared dishes each week for the past two years to elderly residents and needy locals in south London. However, the group's plans have been thrown into disarray by the news that they will lose use of New Year’s Day.

This organization had relied on Zipcar, the app-based vehicle rental service that customers to access its fleet of vehicles via smartphone. The company caused shock across London when it said it would shut down its UK operations from 1 January.

This means many volunteers cannot collect food from a major food charity, which gathers surplus food from grocery stores, cafes and restaurants. Obvious alternatives are less convenient, costlier, or do not offer the same convenient access.

“The impact will be massively,” stated Vimal Pandya, the community kitchen’s founder. “Personally me and my team are worried about the logistical challenge we will face. Many groups like ours will face difficulties.”

“Knowing the reality, everyone is concerned and thinking: ‘How are we going to carry on?”

A Significant Setback for City Vehicle Clubs

The community kitchen’s drivers are among over 500,000 people in London who were car club members, now potentially left without convenient access to vehicles, without the hassle and cost of ownership. The vast majority of those people were likely with Zipcar, which had a near-monopoly position in the city.

The planned closure, pending consultation with employees, is a serious setback to hopes that vehicle clubs in cities could cut the need for private vehicle ownership. However, some analysts also suggested that Zipcar’s departure need not mean the demise for the idea in Britain.

The Promise of Shared Mobility

Car sharing is prized by many urbanists and environmentalists as a way of mitigating the ills linked to vehicle ownership. Typically, vehicles sit as two-tonne dead weights on the side of the road for the vast majority of the time, occupying parking. They also involve large carbon emissions to produce, and people who do not own cars tend to use active travel and take public transport more. That benefits cities – reducing congestion and pollution – and improves people’s health through more exercise.

Understanding the Decline

The company started in 2000 before its acquisition by the American rental giant Avis Budget in 2013. Zipcar’s UK revenues barely registered compared with its parent company's overall annual revenue, and a deficit that grew to £11.7m in 2024 gave no reason to continue.

The parent company stated the closure is part of a “wider restructuring across our international business, where we are taking targeted actions to streamline operations, improve returns”.

Its latest financial reports noted revenues had fallen as drivers took fewer and shorter trips. “This trend reflect the ongoing impact of the cost-of-living crisis, which is dampening demand for discretionary spending,” it said.

The Capital's Specific Challenges

However, several experts noted that London has specific problems that made it difficult for the sector to succeed.

• Patchwork Policies: With numerous local councils, car-club operators face a patchwork of different procedures and costs that made it harder.
• New Costs: The closure comes as electric cars start paying London’s congestion charge, adding extra expenses.
• Parking Permit Disparity: Residents in some boroughs pay just £63 for a year’s electric car parking permit. A similar shared vehicle would pay over £1,100 per year, creating a major disincentive.

“Our fees should be one-twentieth of a private parking cost,” argued Robert Schopen of Co Wheels. “We’re taking cars off the street. We introduce cleaner models in their place.”

A European Example

Other European countries offer models for London to follow. Germany introduced national shared mobility laws in 2017, providing a unified system for parking, support and exemptions. Now, the country has several shared cars per 10,000 people, while France has 2.1 and Belgium has 6.3. The UK trails at 0.7.

“What we see is that shared mobility around the world, especially in Europe, is growing,” commented Bharath Devanathan of Invers.

Devanathan said authorities should start to view vehicle clubs as a form of public transport, and integrate it with train and bus stations. He added that a potential operator was already seriously considering entering the London market: “Operators will fill this gap.”

The Future Landscape

Other players can be split into two camps:

1. Company-Owned Fleets: Which own or lease their own cars. This includes Denmark’s GreenMobility, France’s Free2Move, and Germany’s Miles Mobility.
2. Person-to-Person Rentals: Which allow users to rent out their own vehicles via an app – a kind of Airbnb for cars. Players include Britain’s Hiyacar and the US’s Getaround and Turo.

Turo, a US-headquartered peer-to-peer platform, is already weighing up the UK gap. Rory Brimmer, its UK head, said there was a “significant chance” to win more users. “There is a void that is going to need to be filled, because London still needs to move,” Brimmer said.

However, it could take some time for other players to build momentum. In the meantime, more people may feel forced to buy cars, and others across London will be left without access.

For the volunteers in Rotherhithe, the coming weeks will be a scramble to find a way. The logistical challenge caused by Zipcar’s exit highlights the wider implications of its departure on vital services and the prospects of shared mobility in the UK.