Zipcar is bailing on the UK after bleeding cash and facing new charges that would hammer its electric vehicle fleet. The car-sharing service stopped taking bookings past the end of the year while they figure out how to shut everything down, and staff are getting hit with formal consultation notices about losing their jobs. Their American parent company pulled the plug after losses exploded to nearly twelve million pounds while revenue kept sliding.
The company got wrecked by high electricity costs for charging their EV fleet, plus insurance premiums kept climbing, and the used car market tanked. London is about to start charging electric vehicles the daily congestion fee that they used to dodge, which would add another massive expense to running the business. Zipcar ran things in London for almost twenty years after getting bought out by Avis, but operating costs finally broke them.
The company got wrecked by high electricity costs for charging their EV fleet, plus insurance premiums kept climbing, and the used car market tanked. London is about to start charging electric vehicles the daily congestion fee that they used to dodge, which would add another massive expense to running the business. Zipcar ran things in London for almost twenty years after getting bought out by Avis, but operating costs finally broke them.
