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A volunteer food project in Rotherhithe has provided hundreds of cooked meals weekly for the past two years to elderly residents and needy locals in southeast London. However, their operations face major disruption by the announcement that they will lose use of New Year’s Day.

This organization had relied on Zipcar, the app-based vehicle rental service that allowed its cars from the street. It sent shockwaves across London when it said it would cease its UK operations from 1 January.

It will mean 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.

“The impact will be 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 are going to struggle.”

“Knowing the reality, they are all worried and thinking: ‘How will we continue?’”

A Major Blow for Urban Car-Sharing

The community kitchen’s drivers are part of more than half a million 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 had a near-monopoly position in the city.

This shutdown, pending consultation with employees, is a big blow to the vision that vehicle clubs in urban areas could cut the need for owning a car. However, some experts have noted that Zipcar’s exit need not mean the demise for the concept in Britain.

The Promise of Car Sharing

Car sharing is prized by many urbanists and environmentalists as a way of mitigating the problems linked to vehicle ownership. Typically, vehicles sit as two-tonne dead weights on the side of the road for 95% of the time, occupying parking. They also require large carbon emissions to produce, and people without a vehicle tend to use active travel and take public transport more. That helps urban areas – reducing 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 owner's total earnings, and a loss that grew to £11.7m in 2024 gave little incentive to continue.

The parent company stated the closure is part of a “wider restructuring across our global operations, where we are taking deliberate steps to simplify processes, improve returns”.

Zipcar’s most recent accounts noted revenues had declined as drivers took less frequent, shorter trips. “These changes reflect the ongoing impact of the cost-of-living crisis, which continues to suppress demand for discretionary spending,” it said.

London's Unique Hurdles

However, several experts noted that London has particular issues that made it much harder for the company and its rivals to succeed.

• Patchwork Policies: Across 33 boroughs, car-club operators face a mosaic of different procedures and costs that made it harder.
• Congestion Charge: The closure coincides with electric cars becoming liable for London’s congestion charge, adding extra expenses.
• Unequal Parking Fees: Residents in some boroughs pay as little as £63 for a year’s electric car parking permit. A floating car club 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.”

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 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 shared mobility around the world, particularly on the continent, is growing,” said Bharath Devanathan of Invers.

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

The Future Landscape

The company’s competitors can roughly be divided 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. Peer-to-Peer Services: Which allow users to rent out their own vehicles via an app – similar to Airbnb for cars. Players include Britain’s Hiyacar and the US’s Getaround and Turo.

Turo, a US-headquartered peer-to-peer platform, 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.

Yet, it could take some time 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 coming weeks will be a scramble to find a solution. The logistical challenge caused by Zipcar’s exit highlights the wider implications of its departure on vital services and the future of shared mobility in the UK.