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Juan Roig Valor
Madrid
Wednesday, 22 May 2024, 09:30
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Car sharing has become a staple of getting around in some large cities in Spain. In 2023, the major companies responsible for this service registered 3.75 million trips, an increase of 10% compared to the previous year.
In total, there are 1.7 million registered users and 3,902 vehicles available in the cities. The fleet has increased by 68.2% in the past four years. Of these, two thirds are 100% electric vehicles and one fifth are plug-in hybrids.
According to the study carried out by Pons Mobility, 75% of car sharing users in Spain already own a car, although 19% of those surveyed are considering getting rid of their car to focus on car sharing as a cheaper alternative.
The association said: "one of the aspects most valued by car sharing users is the accessibility offered by this service, allowing them to reach any point in the city quickly, even in restricted areas such as low emission zones".
Eight car sharing companies - Free2move, Getaround, GoTo-Astara, Guppy, Sharenow, Voltio, Wible and Zity by Mobilize - currently operate in Spain in the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Asturias, Santander, Ibiza, Valencia and Bilbao.
The most common service model for car sharing companies is what is known as "free floating", where vehicles are available via an app and can be rented by the minute at any time. This was the bulk of 2023 trips.
However, companies are looking for other ways to increase their profitability, such as longer rentals, from a full day to months, or creating flat rates. One example is Zity, which, with a fixed monthly fee, allows the first five, 10 or 20 minutes of the journey to be free of charge.
The car sharing phenomenon is still relatively new - the first business models started in Spain in 2016 - and companies had to spend years being unprofitable while they refined their rates and zones. Now, most already claim to be operating in the black.
The Pons Mobility study also pointed out: "the bulk of users in Spain are in the 25 to 40 age group, while the 41 to 55 age group already represents a third of users and almost 9,000 active users are over 65 years old".
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