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The community kitchen in Rotherhithe has been delivering a large number of prepared dishes weekly for the past two years to pensioners and vulnerable locals in southeast London. Yet, their operations face major disruption by the announcement that they will lose cars and vans on New Year’s Day.

The group depended on Zipcar, the car-sharing company that customers to access its cars from the street. It caused shock through the capital when it said it would cease its UK operations from 1 January.

This means many volunteers cannot pick up supplies from the Felix Project, that collects surplus food 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,” stated Vimal Pandya, the community kitchen’s founder. “My team and I are concerned by the operational hurdle 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 Significant Setback for Urban Car-Sharing

The community kitchen’s drivers are among more than half a million 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.

This shutdown, pending consultation with employees, is a serious setback to hopes that car sharing in cities could reduce the need for private vehicle ownership. Yet, some experts also suggested that Zipcar’s exit need not spell the end for the concept in Britain.

The Potential of Shared Mobility

Car sharing is prized by many urbanists and green advocates 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 the vast majority of the time, using up space. They also require large carbon emissions to produce, and people who do not own cars tend to use active travel and take transit 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 being bought by the US car rental group Avis Budget in 2013. Zipcar’s UK income barely registered compared with its owner's total earnings, and a deficit 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 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 is dampening demand for discretionary spending,” it said.

London's Unique Challenges

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

• Inconsistent Rules: With numerous local councils, car-club operators face a mosaic of different procedures and prices that complicate operations.
• Congestion Charge: The closure comes as electric cars becoming liable for London’s congestion charge, adding extra expenses.
• Unequal Parking Fees: Locals in some boroughs pay just £63 for a annual 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 resident’s permit,” argued Robert Schopen of Co Wheels. “We remove vehicles. We introduce cleaner models in their place.”

A European Example

Nations in Europe offer examples for London to follow. Germany introduced 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 trails at 0.7.

“What we see is that car sharing around the world, particularly on the continent, is growing,” commented Bharath Devanathan of Invers.

He suggested authorities should start to view vehicle clubs as a form of mass transit, and link 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

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

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 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.

One company, a US-headquartered P2P service, 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 a while for other players to establish themselves. For now, 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 rush to find a way. The delivery problem caused by Zipcar’s exit underscores the broader impact of its departure on vital services and the prospects of shared mobility in the UK.