What is a car club ?
Swapping car ownership for car rental. Rather than owning your own car, you rent someone else's through one of three methods - commercial car share, a member-based scheme or a community sharing model. It's known as a 'hyper flexible' model, with users being able to rent a car for 1-2 hours up to days at a time. Depending on where you are you can switch up your vehicle for what you need - small zippy cars for city driving or a bigger SUV for weekends away.
Cost of Owning a Vehicle - Estimates of car ownership vary greatly depending upon how much you drive. For the average commuter parkers.co.uk estimate that the cost is £5,471 (including tax, insurance, fuel and maintenance costs) which works out at £456 per month. So although it is very subjective, for those of us who don't drive all that much, car-sharing is certainly worth looking at.
Cost for car clubs - Costs vary depending upon the service you use, but they are generally between £5-£10 per hour including an amount of fuel, however if you join a subscription service that hourly rate drops quite substantially.
Environmental factors - In Britain, our road network is overcrowded, so any scheme that can reduce the number of cars on the road will have a positive impact on congestion and lessen the amount of harmful emissions being released into the atmosphere.
Availability - One of the main concerns peple have about using car share schemes is whether there is a pick up/drop off point near you. Coverage is often centred around large cities and urban areas, however there are companies offering vehicles in more rural areas. A first step is to check out your local government website, almost all of which now have a page on car club options in your area. If coverage in your area is poor, perhaps you could set up your own ride share scheme, taking it in turns to give your colleagues lifts to work, or consider hiring an electric mini bus to collect/drop off staff from specified pick up points..
Car Usage - Current estimates suggest our cars are parked at home for 80% of the time, elsewhere for 16.5% and get driven for 3.5% of the time. This makes car sharing a viable alternative for many of us.
Hygiene - Most car share schemes have hygiene protocols in place, from sanitisers and wipes available in cars to wipe down touch points when you leave to penalising users who leave the car in a mess after use.
So why not give car sharing a try !
