🔗 Share this article

The community kitchen in Rotherhithe has been delivering a large number of cooked meals weekly for two years to elderly residents and vulnerable locals in southeast London. However, the group's plans face major disruption by the news that they will lose use of New Year’s Day.

The group had relied on Zipcar, the app-based vehicle rental service that customers to access its fleet of vehicles from the street. The company sent shockwaves across London when it declared it would shut down its UK business from 1 January.

It will mean many volunteers will be unable to collect food from the Felix Project, that collects excess produce from supermarkets, cafes and restaurants. Other options are less convenient, costlier, or do not offer the same convenient access.

“The impact will be massively,” said Vimal Pandya, the project's founder. “Personally me and my team are concerned by the logistical challenge we will face. A lot of people like ours are going to struggle.”

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

A Major Blow for City Vehicle Clubs

The community kitchen’s drivers are part of over 500,000 people in London who were car club members, now potentially left without easy use 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.

This shutdown, subject to consultation with staff, is a serious setback to hopes that car sharing in urban areas could reduce the need for owning a car. Yet, some analysts also suggested that Zipcar’s departure need not spell the end for the idea in Britain.

The Potential of Car Sharing

Shared vehicle use is prized by many urbanists and green advocates as a way of mitigating the ills linked to vehicle ownership. Most cars 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 – easing congestion and pollution – and improves public 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 income barely registered compared with its parent company's overall annual revenue, and a loss that grew to £11.7m in 2024 gave no reason to continue.

Avis Budget has said the closure is part of a “wider restructuring across our global operations, where we are taking targeted actions to streamline operations, enhance profitability”.

Zipcar’s most recent accounts said revenues had declined as drivers took less frequent, shorter trips. “This trend reflect the continuing effect of the cost-of-living crisis, which continues to suppress demand for non-essential services,” it said.

London's Unique Hurdles

However, industry observers noted that London has particular issues that made it much harder for the sector to succeed.

• Patchwork Policies: Across 33 boroughs, car-club operators face a mosaic of different procedures and costs that made it harder.
• New Costs: The closure comes as electric cars start paying London’s congestion charge, adding unavoidable costs.
• Unequal Parking Fees: Locals in some boroughs pay as little as £63 for a year’s electric car parking permit. A similar shared vehicle would pay over £1,100 annually, creating a significant barrier.

“Our fees should be one-twentieth of a private parking cost,” argued Robert Schopen of Co Wheels. “We remove vehicles. We introduce cleaner models in their place.”

Lessons from Abroad

Nations in Europe offer examples for London to follow. Germany introduced national shared mobility laws 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 lags behind at 0.7.

“What we see is that shared mobility around the world, particularly on the continent, is expanding,” said Bharath Devanathan of Invers.

Devanathan said authorities should start to view vehicle clubs as a form of public transport, and link 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

The company’s competitors can roughly be divided into two camps:

1. Company-Owned Fleets: Which maintain their own cars. Examples 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 assessing the UK gap. Rory Brimmer, its UK managing director, 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.

However, it could take some time for other players to establish themselves. In the meantime, more people may feel forced to buy cars, and many across London will be without a convenient option.

For Rotherhithe community kitchen, 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 community groups and the future of shared mobility in the UK.