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A volunteer food project in Rotherhithe has distributed a large number of prepared dishes each week for two years to pensioners and needy locals in south London. However, the group's plans face major disruption by the news that they will not have access to New Year’s Day.

The group depended on Zipcar, the app-based vehicle rental service that allowed its cars from the street. The company sent shockwaves across London when it said it would cease its UK operations from 1 January.

This means many helpers will be unable to pick up supplies from the Felix Project, which gathers excess produce from supermarkets, cafes and restaurants. Obvious alternatives are less convenient, costlier, or do not offer the same convenient access.

“It’s going to be affected massively,” said Vimal Pandya, the project's founder. “My team and I are worried about the operational hurdle we will face. Many groups like ours are going to struggle.”

“Faced with this reality, everyone is concerned and thinking: ‘How will we continue?’”

A Major Blow for Urban Car-Sharing

These volunteers are part of 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. Most of those people were probably with Zipcar, which had a near-monopoly position in the city.

The planned closure, pending consultation with employees, is a big blow to hopes that vehicle clubs in urban areas could cut the need for owning a car. Yet, some experts also suggested that Zipcar’s exit need not spell the end for the idea in Britain.

The Potential of Shared Mobility

Shared vehicle use is valued by many urbanists and environmentalists as a way of mitigating the ills associated with vehicle ownership. Most cars sit as two-tonne dead weights on the street for the vast majority of the time, using up space. They also require large carbon emissions to produce, and people without a vehicle tend to walk, cycle and take transit more. That benefits cities – reducing congestion and pollution – and improves people’s health through increased activity.

Understanding the Decline

The company started in 2000 before being bought by the American rental giant Avis Budget in 2013. Zipcar’s UK income were minimal compared with its parent company's overall annual revenue, and a loss that grew to £11.7m in 2024 gave little incentive to continue.

Avis Budget has said the closure is part of a “broader transformation across our international business, where we are taking targeted actions to simplify processes, improve returns”.

Its latest financial reports noted revenues had fallen as drivers took fewer and shorter trips. “This trend reflect the continuing effect of the economic squeeze, which is dampening demand for discretionary spending,” it said.

The Capital's Specific Hurdles

Yet, industry observers noted that London has particular issues that made it difficult for the sector to succeed.

• Patchwork Policies: Across 33 boroughs, car-club operators face a patchwork of varying processes and costs that complicate operations.
• Congestion Charge: The closure comes as electric cars start paying London’s congestion charge, adding unavoidable costs.
• Parking Permit Disparity: Locals in some boroughs pay as little as £63 for a annual electric car parking permit. A similar shared vehicle would pay over £1,100 annually, creating a significant barrier.

“We should literally be charged one-twentieth of a resident’s permit,” 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 enacted national shared mobility laws in 2017, providing a unified system for parking, subsidies 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 lags behind at 0.7.

“What we see is that car sharing around the world, especially in Europe, is growing,” said Bharath Devanathan of Invers.

Devanathan said authorities should start to treat car sharing as a form of public transport, and integrate it with train and bus stations. He added that one unnamed client 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. Examples Denmark’s GreenMobility, France’s Free2Move, and Germany’s Miles Mobility.
2. Person-to-Person Rentals: Which allow users to hire out their own vehicles via an app – a kind of Airbnb for cars. Examples 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 “big opportunity” to win more users. “A space exists that is going to need to be filled, because London still needs to move,” Brimmer said.

However, it could take a while for other players to establish themselves. For now, more people may choose to buy cars, and many across London will be without a convenient option.

For Rotherhithe community kitchen, the next month will be a rush to find a way. The delivery problem caused by Zipcar’s exit highlights the broader impact of its departure on vital services and the prospects of shared mobility in the UK.