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The volunteer food project in Rotherhithe has been delivering hundreds of cooked meals weekly for two years to pensioners and vulnerable locals in southeast London. However, their operations face major disruption by the news that they will not have cars and vans on New Year’s Day.

This organization depended on Zipcar, the car-sharing company that allowed its fleet of vehicles via smartphone. The company caused shock across London when it declared it would shut down its UK operations from 1 January.

It will mean many volunteers cannot pick up supplies from a major food charity, which gathers excess produce from supermarkets, cafes and restaurants. Other options are further away, costlier, or lack the same convenient access.

“The impact will be massively,” stated Vimal Pandya, the project's founder. “My team and I are concerned by the logistical challenge we will face. A lot of people like ours will face difficulties.”

“Faced with this reality, everyone is concerned and thinking: ‘How are we going to carry on?”

A Major Blow for City Vehicle Clubs

The community kitchen’s drivers are among more than half a million people in London who were car club members, now potentially left without easy use to vehicles, without the hassle and cost of ownership. The vast majority of those members were probably with Zipcar, which held a dominant position in the city.

This shutdown, pending 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 experts also suggested that Zipcar’s exit need not mean the demise for the idea in Britain.

The Potential of Shared Mobility

Car sharing is valued by many urbanists and green advocates as a way of mitigating the problems associated with vehicle ownership. Typically, vehicles sit as two-tonne dead weights on the street for the vast majority of the time, occupying parking. They also require large carbon emissions to produce, and people without a vehicle tend to walk, cycle and take transit more. That helps urban areas – reducing congestion and pollution – and boosts people’s health through increased activity.

Understanding the Decline

The company started in 2000 before its acquisition by the US car rental group Avis Budget in 2013. Zipcar’s UK income were minimal compared with its owner's overall annual revenue, and a loss that reached £11.7m in 2024 gave little incentive to continue.

The parent company stated the closure is part of a “broader transformation across our international business, where we are taking targeted actions to streamline operations, enhance profitability”.

Its latest financial reports said revenues had declined as drivers took less frequent, shorter trips. “This trend reflect the ongoing impact of the cost-of-living crisis, which continues to suppress demand for non-essential services,” it said.

London's Unique Challenges

However, several experts noted that London has specific problems that made it much harder for the sector to succeed.

• Patchwork Policies: Across 33 boroughs, car-club operators face a patchwork of varying processes and costs that made it harder.
• New Costs: The closure comes as electric cars start paying London’s congestion charge, adding extra expenses.
• Parking Permit Disparity: Locals in some boroughs pay just £63 for a year’s 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’re putting less polluting cars in their place.”

Lessons from Abroad

Other European countries offer examples for London to follow. Germany enacted national shared mobility laws in 2017, providing a nationwide framework for parking, subsidies and exemptions. Now, the country has 5.4 shared cars per 10,000 people, while France has 2.1 and Belgium has 6.3. The UK lags behind at 0.7.

“The evidence shows is that shared mobility around the world, especially in Europe, is growing,” said Bharath Devanathan of Invers.

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

The Future Landscape

Other players can roughly be divided into two models:

1. Company-Owned Fleets: Which maintain 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. 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. “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 build momentum. In the meantime, more people may choose to buy cars, and many across London will be left without access.

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 vital services and the prospects of car-sharing in the UK.