owning v sharing

[mtvessel]

Summary of a couple of articles in the Telegraph. Parts read like adverts for various companies.

While car sharing only accounts for 1% of vehicle use many see it as the way forward in urban areas. Points raised:
Buying a car new or second hand is extremely expensive
Insurance and fuel likewise
Parking can be a nightmare
In London many have sold their cars and not replaced them because of ULEZ
The average privately owned vehicle spends 96% of the time unused
Around 33% are driving less because of cost
If you cover 6-8k miles a year, you could expect to save £3.5k by sharing/longer term rental
The average EV is expected to have a life of 1M miles, fairly pointless for a private motorist

Reviews of the various companies are varied with either one or five stars. Complaints centre around a vehicle not being available for the booking or being in a filthy condition.

[MustangGT]

I see the main problem as being everyone wants to use it during the 4% of time.

[vikingaero]

I suspect that the article promotes Turo, Zipcar and hire car company car clubs.

If you are organised and don't need a car for much, then yes they could be a good proposition. If you lead a chaotic lifestyle then maybe not. Any sharing scheme is going to have periods of peak demand when you won't get a car.

[SkodaIan]

Car sharing, though lauded by many who hate cars has been around in concept for ages and still not got anywhere.

The reality is that if you don't own a car, for any decent length/duration journey a proper hire car is cheaper and is guaranteed to be available, not full of rubbish/filthy etc.

For shorter journeys, there are plenty of vehicles you can use in every city to get about, and have been around since before cars were invented. These wonderful vehicles, otherwise known as taxis even come with a driver who picks you up from your door, drops you off where you want to go and makes sure other users don't fill the car with rubbish or damage it.

[Ankh87]

Car sharing doesn't really work. There's so many variables to account for. Unless say your work has a minibus that will be reliable and there all the time, then it doesn't work.
You've got people either on holiday, different working times, on sick, change jobs, etc all to account for. Then if they are running late, it means you're late.

I did car share for a short period of time but it became a pain to organise a back up when I were on leave or absent. Then when I left, the person I picked up was then worried about how they would get to work. Granted that's on them to figure out but makes you feel a bit rubbish.

Edited by Ankh87 on Tuesday 14th November 14:12

[JQ]

It seems to work very well in Manchester. I walk past a number of the cars on a daily basis and they always look very clean and tidy. There's a variety of different cars dotted all over the city in allocated parking spots including long wheelbase vans. You either book the car in advance or just walk up and commence the hire by opening the vehicle via the app.

A number of the graduates in my office use them as they live in city centre flats and don't want the hassle of running a car but do sometimes want to drive somewhere. If I lived in the city centre I'd definitely consider chopping my daily in for membership of such a scheme.

https://www.enterprisecarclub.co.uk/gb/en/programs...

It becomes much less viable once you get out to the suburbs, although there are cars available there, so they must demand.

[RizzoTheRat]

SkodaIan said:

Car sharing, though lauded by many who hate cars has been around in concept for ages and still not got anywhere.

The reality is that if you don't own a car, for any decent length/duration journey a proper hire car is cheaper and is guaranteed to be available, not full of rubbish/filthy etc.

For shorter journeys, there are plenty of vehicles you can use in every city to get about, and have been around since before cars were invented. These wonderful vehicles, otherwise known as taxis even come with a driver who picks you up from your door, drops you off where you want to go and makes sure other users don't fill the car with rubbish or damage it.

Surely the answer is a mix. A hire car for a weeks holiday. a Zipcar or similar for an hour when you need to buy something heavy, and a taxi when you just want to get to the station/airport on time. Round here there's also the option of electric mopeds for hire by the minute, plus public transport is pretty good.

The problem is we're all far too used to having our own transport available whenever we need it. My wife and I dropped from 2 cars to 1 a few years ago, and we could probably cope with no car well enough, but it's convenient to have the car available at a moments notice when you want it, eg my wife drives to work if it's pissing it down, and we can just load up the the car and go when we're on holiday. That said I've just got back from a long weekend where we flew and then hired a car, and doing the same next month, hire cars are getting to be sensible prices again.

[CKY]

mtvessel said:

Buying a car new or second hand is extremely expensive

I thought this viewpoint somewhat archaic and outdated by now? I purchased a new daily driver 12 months ago, for £1,100 I got something that was MOT'd for 12 months, insured and taxed it, and has given me 0 issues over the 6k miles I have done so far. Granted this is somewhat below what most people appear to want to be seen in nowadays, but it's far from scraping the barrel in terms of what is available on the second hand market. So yeah, bit of an odd point made by OP.

[jeremyh1]

The other people might stink of BO and crap themselves so I would rather walk

[Roger Irrelevant]

CKY said:

mtvessel said:

Buying a car new or second hand is extremely expensive

I thought this viewpoint somewhat archaic and outdated by now? I purchased a new daily driver 12 months ago, for £1,100 I got something that was MOT'd for 12 months, insured and taxed it, and has given me 0 issues over the 6k miles I have done so far. Granted this is somewhat below what most people appear to want to be seen in nowadays, but it's far from scraping the barrel in terms of what is available on the second hand market. So yeah, bit of an odd point made by OP.

It's from the Telegraph, whose readers are archaic and outdated and will think that anything over three years old will 'start getting unreliable' because that's the way things were in the 50s. The reality is as you say - if you can deign to drive something older and non-prestige then buying and running a car can be very cheap. Our Yaris runabout that was paid for long ago would be about £2-2.5k today, and the cost to do circa 7000 miles a year is about £1500, £2k at the very top end. If we only did 1000 miles it would be more like £6-800. I'd be perfectly happy to pay that to have my own car even if car sharing was free.

[Moodyman1]

Bicycle for short urban journeys (up to 10 miles) and a well maintained shed for longer jaunts. Complete freedom.

[shiftedspace]

You know when you get on a bus/tram/train and the back of the seats have those lighter burns, any surface with a texture is grubby, fabrics are filthy and there's that faint smell that you're not sure is the person in front or piss on the floor, you can't get a seat because it's between 7am and 9am and you're lucky if you can even physically fit on?

Shared car ownership, they will not be a pleasant place to spend time and everyone will want to use them at the same times of day.

I am trying to think of how much of a shed my car would have to be before I would be willing to pay to share one with the general public instead. I think 20 year old Yaris would take the win for me, but I might be particularly stubborn.

[shiftedspace]

You know when you get on a bus/tram/train and the back of the seats have those lighter burns, any surface with a texture is grubby, fabrics are filthy and there's that faint smell that you're not sure is the person in front or piss on the floor, you can't get a seat because it's between 7am and 9am and you're lucky if you can even physically fit on?

Shared car ownership, they will not be a pleasant place to spend time and everyone will want to use them at the same times of day.

I am trying to think of how much of a shed my car would have to be before I would be willing to pay to share one with the general public instead. I think 20 year old Yaris would take the win for me, but I might be particularly stubborn.

[RizzoTheRat]

shiftedspace said:

I am trying to think of how much of a shed my car would have to be before I would be willing to pay to share one with the general public instead. I think 20 year old Yaris would take the win for me, but I might be particularly stubborn.

Depends not just on how much you use it, but if you have anywhere to keep it. A friend of my wife's uses one probably half a dozen times a year, if she had her own car it would be parked on the street (needing a paid permit) and would probably have a flat battery and at least one flat tyre any time she wanted to use it.