Enjoy returns to old rental methods, Zity abandons Milan, but the decline is also recorded in large European cities such as London and Paris: the shared car has less appeal for users and unsustainable costs for the public
But the car of the future did not have to be – as the gurus of new mobility claimed a few years ago – electric, connected and shared? On electricity, we know how things are going, between weak demand, industrial crises and political second thoughts. Connectivity is progressing quickly, even if the constant aging of the fleet and the mediocre quality of the infrastructure still make connections between vehicles and with external reality still implausible. But the one who seems to be decidedly worse off is sharing. Car sharing, a phenomenon that seemed destined for a rapid explosion in large urban centres, is instead giving clear signs of retreat. In truth, for a few years now, the merger between independent companies had demonstrated the difficult sustainability of the business model: between 2018 and 2020 Daimler’s Car2go and BMW’s DriveNow and the rental company Sixt announced and completed the integration of their services into the brand Share Nowand then sell them in the spring of 2022 to Free2movea company of the Stellantis group. Recently, however, other alarms have been raised which point to a possible systemic crisis.
the Milan model
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Car sharing is an exquisitely metropolitan phenomenon and if there is an Italian metropolis to name, it can only be Milan. Where shared cars experienced a season of splendor, only to then begin a significant decline, much to bring Enjoy (the oil group company Eni) to significantly modify the conditions of the service, born as “free floating” and destined to become from next January 12th “station based”. It means that, while previously shared cars in Milan (and Turin and Florence) could be picked up and left wherever you wanted, soon in the same cities they will have to be rented and brought back to Enjoy Points at Enilive service stations or airports and railway stations. Not only that: the users they will no longer enjoy the privilege of not paying for parking in the blue lines and entry into Area C. An important downsizing, in short, if we consider that the introduction of “free floating” was the winning weapon which, with its convenience, had decreed the initial success of car sharing. But in the sector there are those who have fared worse. Already in 2021 the Livorno court had declared the failure of Share’ngoa Chinese electric car rental company in Milan, Rome and Florence, active since 2015. From 18 December this year, however, Zity’s adventure still ended in Milan and its 650 Dacia Spring white-greenshared offers by Mobilize, a division of the Renault group specialized in sustainable mobility active since 2021 and in turn now downsized. Another alarm bell, even if the problem is not just Italian.
European epidemic
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Other recent events demonstrate that the car sharing crisis does not only concern our cities. Zity, who is now leaving Milan, had already ceased operations in the past in Paris (in 2024) and in Lyon and now he will also do it in Madrid. Zipcar, on the other hand, which was the largest operator in the United Kingdom with around 650 thousand registered in the country – 550 thousand of which in London – on 1 December announced the cessation of operations in Great Britain starting from December 31st, starting negotiations with its employees. A real twist, because Zipcar is not a small company, but an American giant owned by the large car rental group Avis-Budgetwhich last year, however, had already stopped operating in other British areas such as Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol and had registered after-tax budget losses of £11.6m. In short, the math for car sharing doesn’t add up even in other countries.
the causes of the crisis
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To deal a hard blow to car sharing it was initially the Covid pandemic of 2020, which essentially stopped activities for a long period and induced users a certain distrust in getting on board of cars used by unknown people. The downward trend in Italian cities was then confirmed starting from 2024: the Aniasa Report (the national association of car rental, sharing mobility and automotive digital) reveals how the sector has gone through the to 4.2 million annual rentals from 5 million in 2023 and even 10 million in the pre-Covid period. And if the users registered for the services were 1.2 million, the truly active ones (with at least one rental in the last six months) there were no more than 330 thousand; furthermore, the average duration of use has almost doubled in the last five years, a sign of a use more similar to that of short-term rental (the classic rent-a-car) than to car sharing itself (which aimed to facilitate short city trips, avoiding the use of private cars). Finally, car sharing is a habit that, in Italy, concerns almost only Milan and Rome, which cover 70% of total rentalsbeing less attractive in smaller environments. However, it is above all the financial aspect that determines the withdrawal of several companies from the sector.
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the numbers don’t add up
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The balance sheets of car sharing companies, even if supported by large car manufacturers, show excessive criticality. THEThe first problem is damage and theft that cars suffer and which entail heavy economic burdens: often half of the overall fleet of sharing cars (around 3,300) is unusable in Italy for these reasons. Recovering and repairing cars damaged due to neglect or vandalism is a significant costwhich is in addition to those of insurance, maintenance, cleaning, refueling or battery charging, but is not the only one: in Milan, in fact, car sharing companies pay the Municipality a fee of 175 euros per month if with a combustion engine and 45 if electric. An unsustainable burden, according to the trade association Assosharingfor which “Each vehicle generates losses exceeding 400 euros per monthwhich add to the already high operating costs”. The association thus denounces “the risk of a collapse of the entire service with negative effects on urban mobility and air quality”. If, then, to the costs we add the possible reduction in use by users due to the renunciation of a large operator like Enjoy to the convenience offered by “free floating”, the danger of a serious crisis in the car sharing system becomes even more evident.
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