, Labour’s Shadow BEIS
Secretary, today announces plans for publicly owned community
car-sharing clubs, putting 30,000 electric cars on the streets
for hire by local people.
Private car sharing companies like Zip Car are concentrated in
cities and provide limited numbers of electric cars. As of 2019,
Zipcar has 2,600 cars nationally. Community Car Clubs will be
rolled out across the UK and provide a fleet of low carbon
electric cars that can be rented through an app.
Community Car Clubs will be owned and operated by community-level
co-operatives and local authorities. A National Car Club will
support their set up with expertise and funding for the initial
costs, and will procure domestically-built electric cars to
support local manufacturing. It will also run a mobile app that
can be used locally.
The scheme will help the UK tackle the climate emergency by
reducing emissions, the number of privately-owned cars on the
road, and journey numbers.
, Labour's Shadow BEIS
Secretary, said:
“Labour’s Community Car Clubs will put collective car transport
in the hands of communities, reducing emissions, improving air
quality in urban areas and boosting domestic manufacturing.
“As part of our Green Industrial Revolution, clean air has to be
a priority - and that means making electric car-sharing available
to everyone.
“Labour will ensure every community has its own electric
car-sharing club - owned and controlled by the people.’’
Ends
Notes to Editors
- A publicly owned community car sharing club, emulating
private companies like Zipcar, will allow for people to access
community owned cars in their local neighbourhoods.
- This will be funded by £300 million from Labour’s National
Transformation Fund of £250bn investment over ten years.
- The £300 million will include £50 million to invest into
financing and procuring the digital technology, mobile apps, data
analysis, start-up costs and systems management to support local
community car clubs, and £250 million towards purchasing electric
vehicles leased to Community Car Clubs - which will catalyse a
further £500 million in income derived from leasing electric cars
to Community Car Clubs. This equates to 30,000 vehicles at
£25,000 per vehicle.
- Existing car-sharing vehicles (from Zipcar and other
companies) are concentrated in UK urban hubs such as London,
Bristol, Oxford and Cambridge. Labour will encourage the set up
of Community Car Clubs in every village, town and city, including
marginalised and held back communities.
- In comparison to Labour's 30,000 Community Car Club vehicles,
Zipcar has 2,600 cars in the UK in 2019, of which electric cars
number in the hundreds. https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/fleet-industry-news/2019/02/22/zipcar-uk-community-reaches-250-000-members, https://www.zipcar.co.uk/press/releases/london-to-go-electric-from-summer-2018
- The national car club will procure EVs collectively for local
co-ops and authorities, pooling demand to reduce purchasing
costs.
