I’ve ditched my car so I can drive a new one every day
Extravagant? No, Justin Webb says renting wheels by the minute is saving him more than £200 a month
IT’S THE smell of your first car that you perhaps remember most fondly. In my case, it wasn’t exactly new leather: more the acrid remnants of my military uncle’s cigar habit. It was 1981, and he had sold me his Toyota Corolla at a knock-down price. It felt like the height of sophistication. I could zoom around in it from Devon, where we lived, to anywhere I liked. The roads in those days were empty and it felt like the world was my oyster.
But that, of course, is no longer the case. Owning and running a car has become an exercise in frustration. The roads are heavily congested, parking is extortionate and the cost of running a vehicle – the insurance, taxes and even basic maintenance – has rocketed.
All this for cars which are, according to the RAC Foundation, only driven on average four per cent of the time. It’s just not that much fun any more. It breeds resentment.
Yet I have always loved owning cars. I’ve had soft-tops in America where I was based for ten years; a left-hand drive Ford Escort that we took to Brussels and sold to someone for a fiver. Along the way, there has even been the odd nice-smelling new one.
But despite the huge leap in car ownership in the 40 years since my Corolla days, it feels like things are about to change. In fact, it may soon not be considered necessary to own your own car at all.
Why? Because we are on the cusp of a huge advancement: car-clubs.
MEMBERS of these organisations share a pool of cars rather than owning them, allowing you to hire one at the click of a button and pick it up on a street near you.
They are experiencing a rapid growth, driven – if you’ll excuse the pun – by increasing numbers of people put off by the high price and stress of running a car.
I made the leap two months ago and abandoned my much-loved Chrysler Grand Voyager familycarrying tank of a machine. And I’m not turning back. Because while, at first glance, it might appear a peculiar decision, the benefits of being a member of this shared economy really do outweigh any costs.
Take, for example, the fact that I now regularly drive home from BBC headquarters to South London in an electric vehicle. It takes about the same amount of time as the Tube and train, costs not much more and is far more reliable. I’ve always found a car belonging to my club within a short walk and the vehicles are always new and well looked after.
One evening I found a soft-top to
drive to work. The next day it was a nippy electric ride. The variety is fun and I’m enjoying driving again for the first time in ages. One revelation has been that electric cars are brilliant to drive.
It’s partly why car manufacturers are so keen on the car club concept – it’s a great marketing strategy for models you might never get to try otherwise.
It does take some getting used to, though. It feels odd to hire a car to go shopping. Or to take the dog to a park, as we did the other day. But it allows great flexibility, giving us the freedom to simply leave the car and decide to walk home if our plans change.
So how does it work? Members – who pay no monthly fees – book a car to drive when they need one using a special app.
There are an estimated 5,000 car club vehicles parked on residential
One day I drove a soft-top to work – the next a nippy electric ride
streets across the country. Once you’ve found a convenient one on the app, you can collect it –using your phone to unlock it – and drive it for as long as you need it.
It’s a pay-as-you-go system, so you’re charged simply for your use on a minute-by-minute basis. The various packages are complicated but you can end up paying roughly 30p to 40p per minute.
Some are electric, but if they are petrol then there is a card inside the car which allows you to top it up, the cost of which is included in the rental. It can then be dropped off wherever you can park it with no further responsibility.
There is no pesky servicing, tax or insurance to organise and if it breaks down, someone else will take care of it. Stop and think about what that means. Kwik Fit says the average car costs £160 a month to keep on the road before any other payments for the vehicle itself.
There are rising insurance costs – more if you have a prang, even if it’s not your fault – or the unanticipated pain of a failed MoT.
I thought my Chrysler was costing me very little, until I stopped to add it all up. Including petrol and parking costs, I realised I was forking out at least £300 a month. And that’s without the initial cost of buying the car as I cleared that loan five years ago.
But since ditching the car, my outgoings are closer to £80. A heavy month might go above £100 but not by much. Running a car is a huge dent in family budget that many of us feel we’re forced to simply absorb without a second thought.
All of this is, in fact, causing us to turn our backs on car ownership already. In the past 20 years, the average annual car mileage has dropped by 1,000 miles. More recently, new car sales are down for the second consecutive year.
Today, experts say that not owning a car is quickly becoming the new normal.
I’ve found that the most compelling reason for giving up ownership is that it’s extremely liberating.
It would be easy to imagine that not having a car any more, after a lifetime of having one parked outside the house, would feel restrictive, a curtailment of our freedom to travel wherever, and whenever, we want. Our cars can feel like an extension of our personal space, which is certainly a difficult hurdle to overcome.
And let’s not forget the emotional attachment we have to our vehicles, particularly those which are elderly, unique or have a special kind of ‘personality’.
Take my friend Jeremy Bowen, the BBC Middle East Editor. He keeps an ancient Alfa Romeo Spider in a lock-up in South London near his home. He visits it lovingly, like a dutiful son visiting an elderly parent. He wants it to be OK, and would never contemplate getting rid of it.
But times are changing. More than half of car club users in the USA are millennials, and may well never feel the same way as Jeremy about a hunk of metal.
Personally, I enjoy the best of both worlds: having the car without any of the responsibility. I no longer think about insurance. Depreciation isn’t an issue. Those uncomfortable visits to garages, bracing
myself for a large bill, are history. I’m convinced it’s the future.
Car clubs are already old news in major European cities, but there is still work to do in the UK before they become ubiquitous.
At the moment there are six main operators here, including Zipcar, Turo and HiyaCar.
Some, like DriveNow, are run by car manufacturers who see it as part of their business model to get you behind the wheels of their products. Others, like easyCar and Enterprise Car Club, are run by established hire car companies.
Some have been operating in inner cities since the millennium and have long been seen as a good, if imperfect, idea.
They originally had to be collected from, and dropped off at, certain specified parking bays and you needed a credit card-type device to open them. More importantly, there just weren’t enough of them to go around.
Today, and with nearly 350,000 members across the country, developments in phone and wireless technology mean these issues have largely been resolved.
Cars can be left wherever it’s legal to park, and some forwardthinking councils will even allow you to use residential bays. Zipcar claims today to have more rentable cars parked around London than there are Starbucks branches
There are, of course, some downsides. Car clubs work best when you make the journey, stop, and then end the hire, knowing you can pick up another car later if you need one. Otherwise it gets expensive as you end up paying for it while it’s stationary.
THE other day I took my wife Sarah to meet some friends in a car club soft-top and discovered – too late – that they lived just over the border in another London borough where we couldn’t leave the car. It meant we had to abandon it prematurely and walk the last half mile. There was much muttering about ‘taking the bus next time’.
Heavy traffic can quickly get expensive, too, when you’re being charged by the minute. A journey of 20 minutes the other day took an hour because of a hold-up caused by eco-warriors in Central London. The journey cost £27 instead of the usual £10.
It would also be wonderful to be
smug about the environmental advantages but, if I’m honest, the jury’s still out.
Yes, the cars are often electric, and the idea behind the clubs should mean there are fewer vehicles on the road overall.
But I have to admit that joining a car club has meant I use London’s public transport system less.
It has instead encouraged me back on the road.
While I’m pootling around in the latest car club models, I have to admit my trusty Chrysler is sitting untouched on my drive. But only because it appears to have no resale value.
When I have finally off-loaded the old thing – which I hope is imminently – I very much doubt I will give it much more of a thought.
I have a month to decide whether to tax the Chrysler again. I probably won’t.
An exciting revolution is at hand. I must celebrate by taking Sarah out for a spin in the open-top. Unless someone else has got it first. In which case, we shall simply stay at home and drink some wine.
And while we do that, we won’t be paying anything at all for any vehicle. Now that does feel good.