Reducing the environmental damage caused by road transport is an issue I’ve always been passionate about, but like most people, I was not expecting a pandemic to suddenly force people off the roads and start changing transport behaviours.
Having built our business, Car & Away, around the idea of letting people earn money by renting out their unused cars to others – for example, while they were on holiday – we were busy educating the market about the virtues of car sharing when the pandemic struck. In an instant, lockdowns were implemented, road usage plummeted (by as much as 40%, according to ONS data) and the travel industry came to a total standstill.
All businesses must be prepared to adapt to changing market conditions, but in our case, a more extreme manoeuvre was needed in the face of the crisis. After all, the Government’s advice was clear: work from home, essential travel only, social distancing, no household mixing – seemingly the worst possible circumstances to be promoting car sharing.
Recognising that some audiences still needed to travel
Since the early days of the Covid crisis we have pivoted our business to survive and thrive under these challenging circumstances by launching Karshare: a car sharing platform to serve the communities within UK cities.
During the first lockdown, we launched with a free service, inspired by the altruistic efforts occurring in communities across the country, in order to help mobilise more services to support the most vulnerable. This enabled care workers to travel further and more frequently, services such as food banks to reach those in need and supported key workers to travel to work as public transport capacity was significantly reduced.
Absorbing the operating costs of cleaning, insurance and breakdown cover, we’ve delivered more than 11,000 free car rental days since March and the service is still running today. Our primary, paid service is now running in Bristol, due to launch in Manchester this spring.
Using community car sharing as a platform for growth
What we’ve seen since launch is that the pandemic has actually accelerated the opportunity for the sharing economy, allowing us to keep building out our Karshare proposition to go beyond key workers and reach a wider audience. People have been commuting less but relying on local journeys more – and we’ve been able to use our free community scheme as a starting point for a broader conversation about the benefits – financial and environmental – of car sharing.
Pre-Covid, the average car was already idle for around 96% of its life, this has increased further given people are working from home more and not travelling as much. With household incomes decreasing due to furlough and redundancy, we’ve been able to identify product-market fit despite the Covid restrictions and reboot our original concept of renting out unused cars. In fact, 46% of people we surveyed recently said that they would consider renting out their cars in order to generate additional income.
~Business Game Changer Special Promotion~
From the success of our free scheme, we’ve been able to expand our fleet and extend access to the car sharing scheme. In doing so, we’ve helped households earn as much as £550 extra per month by renting their car out to others who need easy and occasional access. Uniquely, Karshare can offer private vans to be rented, which is proving popular in the community, with one van having been rented 33 times already. This has helped local businesses earn some income whilst they cannot operate, and it has helped to alleviate the unprecedented rise in demand for vans.
We were able to raise £1.4 million through crowdfunding to support this expansion. In November 2020, we launched Lease and Share, the first car finance agreement available in the UK that enables the agreement holder to hire out their vehicle to vetted drivers in their communities – meaning thousands of people who take cars out on finance can also take advantage of Karshare and make some money by hiring their vehicle out too.
What will the post-Covid world look like for our business?
We need to ensure we are aligned with long-term trends that have arisen or accelerated due to the pandemic. This acceleration has really helped to open up people’s minds to the car sharing concept and the environmental, financial and community opportunities that sharing supports. Predominantly, our role continues to be focused on helping people quickly understand how they can utilise car sharing. Through building a platform and underpinning it with strong community assurances, Karshare has developed an easy process that looks after users and is rewarding and fun to engage with in all senses. We’ve been able to accelerate from our original proposition to support changing community transportation needs and help both key workers and the wider community who either have cars to offer, or who need cars with easy and local access to them.
If your business is facing the issue of having to extend or reframe your offering in line with changing external conditions, my advice is to look first to find a way that supports, rather than undermines your original strategy. Pivoting during a crisis was tough, but it was achievable because our pivot still supported our vision of enabling sustainable road transportation through car sharing. As society reopens, we’re confident that Karshare can play a critical role in reducing the UK’s emissions and making car sharing a vital part of our overall transport mix.
By Andy Hibbert
Andy Hibbert is the founder of Karshare, the UK’s first car sharing platform aimed solely at serving communities within their neighbourhoods and at airport locations.
Karshare is bolstering the UK’s move towards net-zero whilst quickly and easily connecting renters with car owners, enabling users to generate income through car sharing.
