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The community kitchen in Rotherhithe has provided hundreds of cooked meals each week for two years to elderly residents and needy locals in south London. However, their operations face major disruption by the news that they will lose access to New Year’s Day.

This organization depended on Zipcar, the app-based vehicle rental service that customers to access its fleet of vehicles from the street. The company sent shockwaves through the capital when it declared it would cease its UK operations from 1 January.

It will mean many helpers will be unable to collect food from a major food charity, which gathers excess produce from grocery stores, cafes and restaurants. Obvious alternatives are less convenient, more expensive, or do not offer the same flexible hours.

“It’s going to be affected massively,” said Vimal Pandya, the community kitchen’s founder. “Personally me and my team are worried about the operational hurdle we will face. A lot of people like ours will face difficulties.”

“Knowing the reality, everyone is concerned and thinking: ‘How will we continue?’”

A Significant Setback 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 convenient access to vehicles, avoiding the burden 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 staff, is a serious setback to the vision that car sharing in cities could cut the need for owning a car. However, some experts have noted that Zipcar’s departure need not mean the demise for the idea in Britain.

The Promise of Shared Mobility

Shared vehicle use is valued by many urbanists and green advocates as a way of mitigating the problems associated with vehicle ownership. Most cars sit idle on the street for 95% of the time, occupying parking. They also require large carbon emissions to produce, and people without a vehicle tend to walk, cycle and take public transport more. That helps urban areas – 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 revenues barely registered compared with its parent company's overall annual revenue, and a deficit that reached £11.7m in 2024 gave little incentive to continue.

Avis Budget has said the closure is part of a “broader transformation across our global operations, where we are taking targeted actions to streamline operations, improve returns”.

Its latest financial reports noted revenues had declined as drivers took fewer and shorter trips. “These changes reflect the continuing effect of the economic squeeze, which is dampening demand for discretionary spending,” it said.

London's Unique Challenges

However, several experts noted that London has specific problems 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 varying processes and prices that complicate operations.
• Congestion Charge: The closure comes as electric cars start paying London’s congestion charge, adding unavoidable costs.
• Unequal Parking Fees: Residents in some boroughs pay just £63 for a annual 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 resident’s permit,” argued Robert Schopen of Co Wheels. “We remove vehicles. 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 nationwide framework for parking, subsidies 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.

“The evidence shows is that car sharing around the world, especially in Europe, is growing,” commented 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 one unnamed client 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 models:

1. Company-Owned Fleets: Which maintain their own cars. Examples Denmark’s GreenMobility, France’s Free2Move, and Germany’s Miles Mobility.
2. Person-to-Person Rentals: Which allow users to hire 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.

Turo, a US-headquartered peer-to-peer platform, is already weighing up 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 choose to buy cars, and many 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 delivery problem caused by Zipcar’s exit highlights the broader impact of its departure on community groups and the prospects of car-sharing in the UK.