The volunteer food project in Rotherhithe has distributed a large number of prepared dishes weekly for two years to pensioners and vulnerable locals in southeast London. Yet, their operations have been thrown into disarray by the announcement that they will lose access to New Year’s Day.
The group depended on Zipcar, the car-sharing company that customers to access its cars via smartphone. The company sent shockwaves across London when it declared it would shut down its UK operations from 1 January.
It will mean many volunteers will be unable to collect food from the Felix Project, that collects surplus food from grocery stores, cafes and restaurants. Other options are further away, more expensive, or lack the same convenient access.
“It’s going to be affected massively,” said Vimal Pandya, the community kitchen’s founder. “My team and I are worried about the operational hurdle we will face. Many groups like ours will face difficulties.”
“Knowing the reality, they are all worried and thinking: ‘How are we going to carry on?”
These volunteers are part of over 500,000 people in London who were car club members, who could be left without easy use to vehicles, avoiding the burden and cost of ownership. Most of those people were likely with Zipcar, which held a dominant position in the city.
The planned closure, subject to consultation with staff, is a serious setback to the vision that vehicle clubs in urban areas could reduce the need for owning a car. However, some experts have noted that Zipcar’s exit need not spell the end for the concept in Britain.
Shared vehicle use is valued by many urbanists and environmentalists as a way of mitigating the problems linked to vehicle ownership. Most cars sit as two-tonne dead weights on the side of the road for 95% 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 helps urban areas – reducing congestion and pollution – and improves people’s health through increased activity.
Zipcar was founded 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 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 international business, where we are taking deliberate steps to simplify processes, improve returns”.
Its latest financial reports said revenues had fallen as drivers took less frequent, shorter trips. “This trend reflect the continuing effect of the cost-of-living crisis, which is dampening demand for non-essential services,” it said.
Yet, industry observers noted that London has particular issues that made it much harder for the company and its rivals to succeed.
“We should literally be charged one-twentieth of a resident’s permit,” said Robert Schopen of Co Wheels. “We’re taking cars off the street. We introduce cleaner models in their place.”
Nations in Europe offer models 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 several 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 car sharing around the world, particularly on the continent, 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: “Operators will fill this gap.”
Other players can roughly be divided into two models:
Turo, a US-headquartered peer-to-peer platform, is assessing 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.
Yet, 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 next month will be a rush to find a solution. The delivery problem caused by Zipcar’s exit highlights the broader impact of its departure on community groups and the future of car-sharing in the UK.
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