People who are interested in starting an electric community car share are often motivated by a range of overlapping reasons.
They almost always are motivated by the desire to do something about climate chaos. It feels like a big intangible issue, and the individual scale of action can feel insignificant – if essential, but at a collective level it starts to make sense. It also creates a sense of agency when faced with a problem which seems so intractable.
And they are right to be focusing on transport as a way to address climate change. In the UK, domestic transport was responsible for emitting 122 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent ( over 25% of the UK total ) https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport-and-environment-statistics-autumn-2021/transport-and-environment-statistics-autumn-2021 And an average petrol vehicle will emit 3.2 times more CO2 per passenger than electric car.
In the UK in 2019, the lifetime emissions per kilometer of driving a Nissan Leaf EV were about three times lower than for the average conventional car, even before accounting for the falling carbon intensity of electricity generation during the car’s lifetime. https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change/
Given that from the carbon emissions perspective it is important to move as many journeys as possible into cleaner modes of transport, car clubs can have a dual role:
But if you’re interested in a community car club, or sharing transport, you might also be interested in reducing the total material impact of cars. In the UK 2.5 million new cars are sold every year. Increasingly, these are electric cars until by 2030 they will, by law, have to be. But if we simply swap 1 to 1 all our existing vehicles for new ones that run on new energy sources, we miss an opportunity to at the same time reduce our impact on the material world, reduce the steel, aluminum, leather, glass, etc… and... embedded carbon. Because EVs still have embedded carbon (over the lifetime of the car compared to ICE this is accounted for), but one car per three households has less embedded carbon than one car per household.
It is ridiculous to consume so much material for a vehicle that is… parked for 95% of its lifetime!
Even as we look to reduce our carbon and material impacts and approach the natural and material world in ways that are likely to protect us from the worst outcomes of climate chaos, we can, at the same time consider ways of making our communities stronger. Developing a community car club can help people at an individual level as well as creating some of the infrastructure and collaboration that can benefit the community on the long term. Individuals can save money on their transport [[[stat]]], and importantly, can also be protected from the precarity that car dependency can bring. At the same time, developing a car club and a collective around its care can add an additional layer of community engagement. It can also be of benefit to existing community groups by helping them reach out of their existing demographic.
By knowing our community, we are also able to identify local needs and work with local partners to support specific needs. In our case we have partnered with a longstanding welfare charity that helps bring down the cost to families in need even further.
Finally: sharing feels good. Going car free, when it is through choice rather than something forced on people provides a boost to their happiness. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198222001233?via%3Dihub=&s=03
Bear in mind that at different stages you will have people joining as members for different reasons. Your initial core needs to be solid and consistent and united by values and purpose and desired outcome. But as you grow, the success of the club will depend on being welcoming to people who join for a whole range of motivations. Your early supporters might be people who have some spare money, think it’s a wonderful idea, but may not actually intend for any number of reasons. Some members will join to test drive the new technology. Some will want a backup. Some will be looking at their bills and looking for ways to save money. Some had given up on visiting their mother three hours away because their car was unreliable. Transport is like a utility – for everyone.
What are your reasons? What matters to you, why and how does that express locally? What are the specific needs that you can address?