Drive to expand car clubs in Wales
HOUSEHOLDS across Wales will no longer be burdened with the costs of car ownership if an ambitious proposal for car clubs in every community comes to fruition.
The Welsh Government is exploring whether each part of Wales – including deprived and rural areas – could have a pool of electric cars for residents to use when needed.
The concept has already been proved in a remote area.
The Llani Car Club, based in Llanidloes, has been running for 15 years and recently received funding from the Welsh Government and Powys County Council to expand coverage to Machynlleth and Newtown.
Lee Waters, deputy climate change minister, said householders parked more cars in his own street in Llanelli than the street was designed for.
“How do we make it easier for them not to spend all that money on a car that sits idle for 23 hours a day – their second-biggest capital purchase?.
“They clearly see having a car – as I do – as a flexible form of transport that meets people’s complicated, busy lives.”
It would not be right to penalise motorists to discourage car use when the alternatives were inadequate, he said, but having access to electric vehicles (EVs) through a local car club would save people money.
“Currently they don’t have that option,” said Mr Waters. “Currently people feel forced into owning a car. We don’t want that to be the choice they have to face.”
In 2016 the RAC estimated the annual running costs of a petrol car at £2,400-£8,900, excluding fuel and parking charges.
The CoMoUK charity, which supports development of car-share and bike-share schemes, welcomed the government’s ambition.
Chief executive Richard Dilks said: “CoMoUK is delighted to see car clubs gaining recognition as part of how Wales can reduce its emissions and provide flexible, low-cost and sustainable options to its communities. We are already talking with the Welsh Government and hope to see shared transport have a prominent place in the government’s delivery plan for transport.”
Andrew Capel, co-ordinator of Llani Car Club, said the club had been entirely self-supporting for 12 years, before receiving a grant towards purchase of its first EV. It now has three EVs.
“It’s not unusual with any new technology that government steps in to help,” he said, adding that income from car clubs’ members should meet the operating costs once the EVs and dedicated chargers had been purchased.
Llani Car Club membership costs £20 per person per year, including insurance and breakdown cover.
Members pay £3 per hour for the first four hours, tapering down to £1 per hour, and 25p per mile reducing to nil after 150 miles in the EVs, or to 15p per mile in the club’s petrol car.
Using a car for nine hours and covering 100 miles would cost £37.
Members book cars online or by phone. Currently the club has 33 members in the Llanidloes area. That number is set to expand once Machynlleth and Newtown residents can join.
Llani Car Club members typically use the cars for visiting family or friends, shopping and work.
Mr Capel’s wife Barbara uses one of the club’s EVs for her work as a researcher for Ipsos MORI and the Office for National Statistics, sometimes going as far away as Devon.
Some owners of petrol or diesel cars have joined Llani Car Club in order to drive an EV on some journeys. Others joined following changes in lifestyle, including divorce or change of employment.
Mass membership of car clubs would take a shift in mindset, said Mr Capel. “People own cars but with the pandemic and the increase in home working and online meetings, they’ve probably realised that the car is sat outside and not needed even more of the time than before.”
He accepted that people who lived in rural isolation would continue to need to own cars, but said: “There’s lots of little towns or villages where you could easily have a car shared amongst four people.
“There are plenty of those to concentrate on first.”