More motorists in the UK are turning to car clubs due to the spiralling costs of car ownership.
In the past 12 months, membership of car clubs has nearly doubled from 64,679 members to 112,928, according to new Department for Transport statistics.
The main reason for the switch is the ever-increasing cost of fuel; the average tank of fuel now costs £10 more than this time last year.
The rising cost of fuel has also led to more people buying hybrid or electric cars (48,000 units sold in 2008, 62,000 in 2009) and the average engine size sold in the UK in 2009 was down 3.6 per cent on 2008 to 1692cc.
“It is the impact of pump prices," an AA spokesman told the Daily Telegraph. "When we ask motorists what factors have influenced their choice of car, fuel economy comes second after reliability. Environmental concerns come some way down.”
The statistics also showed that more motorists were hanging onto their cars for longer. Motorists held onto their cars for an average of 6.6 years in 2003, compared with 7.1 years in 2009.
Join the debate
Add your comment
Re: Motorists turning to car clubs
The stats about hybrid and electric car sales in 2009 are wrong. The numbers are correct but they refer to the total numbers of cars on UK roads at the end of the year, not the numbers sold during the year. About 14,000 hybrids were sold in 2009.
Re: Motorists turning to car clubs
Or how about working from home say three days a week?, most of us are online so it wouldn't be hard to connect to your place of work would it?, i believe they trialled smething simular in Italy i think it was where in Rome city centre only certain registrations were allowed into the city in an effort to control Co2 emissions and congestion, now i'm not sure how it worked but it probably did cut congestion and it maybe helped people save some money and stress.
Re: Motorists turning to car clubs
In the current economic clime it does make perfect sense for those who live in or work in cities. I make several visits to London per month and found it much cheaper to get a train in and join a car club. Which? magazine did a terrific guide to car clubs, which is how I came about my membership.
http://www.which.co.uk/cars/driving/car-hire-and-car-clubs/car-clubs-exp...
I just wish the schemes made more sense to people living out of towns. The busines model for how cars are to be consumed is slowly changing.