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The community kitchen in Rotherhithe has been delivering a large number of cooked meals weekly for two years to elderly residents and needy locals in southeast London. Yet, the group's plans have been thrown into disarray by the announcement that they will not have access to New Year’s Day.

This organization depended on Zipcar, the car-sharing company that customers to access its cars via smartphone. The company sent shockwaves through the capital when it said it would shut down its UK operations from 1 January.

This means many helpers cannot collect food from a major food charity, which gathers excess produce from supermarkets, cafes and restaurants. Other options are further away, 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 logistical challenge we will face. A lot of people like ours will face difficulties.”

“Knowing the reality, they are all worried and thinking: ‘How are we going to carry on?”

A Major Blow for Urban Car-Sharing

The community kitchen’s drivers are part of over 500,000 people in London who were car club members, now potentially left without convenient access to vehicles, avoiding the burden and cost of ownership. The vast majority of those people were probably with Zipcar, which held a dominant position in the city.

The planned closure, pending consultation with employees, is a big blow to the vision that vehicle clubs in cities could cut the need for owning a car. Yet, some analysts have noted that Zipcar’s departure need not mean the demise for the concept in Britain.

The Potential of Car Sharing

Car sharing is prized by many urbanists and environmentalists as a way of mitigating the ills associated with 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 without a vehicle tend to use active travel and take transit more. That benefits cities – reducing congestion and pollution – and boosts people’s health through more exercise.

Understanding the Decline

Zipcar was founded in 2000 before being bought by the American rental giant Avis Budget in 2013. Zipcar’s UK income barely registered compared with its owner's total earnings, and a loss that reached £11.7m in 2024 gave little incentive to continue.

Avis Budget has said the closure is part of a “wider restructuring across our global operations, where we are taking deliberate steps to simplify processes, improve returns”.

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

The Capital's Specific Challenges

Yet, industry observers noted that London has specific problems that made it difficult for the company and its rivals to succeed.

• Patchwork Policies: With numerous local councils, car-club operators face a patchwork of different procedures and prices that made it harder.
• Congestion Charge: The closure coincides with electric cars becoming liable for London’s congestion charge, adding extra expenses.
• Parking Permit Disparity: Residents in some boroughs pay just £63 for a annual electric car parking permit. A floating car club would pay over £1,100 per year, creating a significant barrier.

“We should literally be charged one-twentieth of a private parking cost,” said Robert Schopen of Co Wheels. “We’re taking cars off the street. We’re putting less polluting cars in their place.”

Lessons from Abroad

Other European countries offer examples for London to follow. Germany introduced national car-sharing legislation in 2017, providing a unified system for parking, support and waivers. 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 car sharing around the world, especially in Europe, is expanding,” commented Bharath Devanathan of Invers.

He suggested authorities should start to treat car sharing as a form of public transport, and integrate it with train and bus stations. He added that a potential operator was looking at entering the London market: “There will be fill this gap.”

What Comes Next?

Other players can roughly be divided into two models:

1. Fleet Operators: Which own or lease their own cars. This includes Denmark’s GreenMobility, France’s Free2Move, and Germany’s Miles Mobility.
2. Peer-to-Peer Services: 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.

One company, a US-headquartered P2P service, is already weighing up the UK gap. Rory Brimmer, its UK head, said there was a “big opportunity” to win more users. “There is a void that is going to need to be filled, because London still needs to move,” Brimmer said.

Yet, it could take a while for other players to build momentum. In the meantime, more people may choose to buy cars, and others across London will be without a convenient option.

For the volunteers in Rotherhithe, the next month will be a scramble to find a way. The logistical challenge caused by Zipcar’s exit highlights the wider implications of its departure on community groups and the prospects of car-sharing in the UK.