Join a Car Club

What are they?

Car clubs are short-term car rental services that allow their members access to locally parked cars which can usually be rented by the hour or day. They offer an alternative model to private car ownership for individuals and businesses.

What are the benefits?

• Saves you money Car clubs allow you to rent and use a car whenever you need one. This reduces the necessity to own one yourself, or to have a second vehicle in your household. A car club avoids the cost of tax, repairs, and other associated car ownership costs. 73% of car club members say they've saved money since joining a car club! 
• Helping the environment There are around 27 per cent fewer CO2 emissions for a car club car, than the average UK car. And each successful car club car takes 20 private cars off the road (source: CoMoUK, the national charity for shared transport). Many car clubs have electric or hybrid vehicles available to hire, further reducing the carbon footprint of your journey, and if you use a car club instead of your main vehicle, you're likely to choose to walk or cycle for those little journeys that don't really need a car. 
• Convenience unlike traditional car hire, most car club vehicles can be booked online or via an app, and accessed using your phone - allowing you to book, collect and drop off again at short notice, and for short lengths of time.

Local car clubs

Oxfordshire councils and a number of commercial car club operators are working together to run a pilot of shared electric vehicles across the county.  These fully battery electric vehicles (with a range of 150-250 miles) are available for residents to use on a pay-per-use basis for as little as an hour and up to a few days. Costs can start from just £5 per hour plus a per-mile charge, and there are fourteen EV vehicles available across the county so far.

They operate in Oxford, Cherwell, West Oxfordshire, South Oxfordshire, and the Vale of White Horse. More on the EV car club scheme.

There are a number of car club operators active in Oxford and across Oxfordshire; for current details, membership rates and how to join at specific locations, please visit the websites listed in the 'next steps' section of this page.If you don’t currently have a car club near you, let us know where you would like to see one using the interactive mapping tool on our Let's Talk platform

Community-led car clubs

As well as commercial car clubs, communities across Oxfordshire are forming their own clubs, like ShareOurCars Oxford. 

Peer-to-Peer car sharing

Peer-to-peer car sharing is where people offer privately-owned vehicles for rent to others via an online platform. This option can provide a solution to car sharing in areas where a car club is not operating. Hiyacar, Getaround and Turo are examples of carsharing platforms.