Carsharing Market Expanding due to Alarming Pollution Levels
By: Punit Shah
Tags: Mobility, Car Sharing, Research, Shared Mobility, Market Research Reports

According to the latest publication of the World Health Organization, 7 million people die of air pollution-induced illnesses each year. Huge amounts of harmful gases, such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide, are emitted from vehicles, factories, and households, where fossil fuels are burned. Apart from causing lung problems, air pollution also leads to ozone depletion, which, in turn, results in climate change in the form of global warming. This has become a major issue across the world, with individual countries and international bodies stepping up efforts to curb it.

Encouraging people to diverge, away from personal transport, to shared mobility is one of these efforts. This is why the carsharing market, which valued $5,571.2 million in 2018, is expected to almost double in size by 2025, to $10,846.9 million, at an 11.0% CAGR during 2019–2025 (forecast period). As the name suggests, carsharing refers to services wherein people can rent a car on a short-term basis. Three types of cars are pressed in sharing services across the globe — luxury, executive, and economy.

As economy cars are the most fuel-efficient, their numbers in sharing service fleets are the highest. Apart from helping control greenhouse gas emissions, these also lead to cost savings for service providers, which is why such cars are popular in sharing services. Cost-effectiveness and environment-friendliness are two of the major factors for the growing popularity of shared cars across the world. Owning a personal vehicle entails purchase costs, parking expenses, fuel costs, maintenance charges, and insurance cost, all of which are saved by the sharing model. Users have to pay only on the basis of the distance traveled and journey time, after an initial registration fee.

Owing to the need to reduce emissions, service providers are increasing the number of electric cars in their sharing fleet. As these vehicles do not burn fossil fuels, they produce no emissions, operationally. Additionally, they are also comparatively silent and easier to maintain, as they have fewer moving parts. Due to the absence of an internal combustion engine, service providers enjoy even more cost savings, as they do not have to spend on petrol and diesel, which are becoming more expensive by the day.

A key carsharing market trend is technological advancements, which are drawing the interest of commuters. Mobile applications developed by service providers connect users with each other, thereby offering ease of booking and paying for the ride. The advent of cloud computing has greatly helped firms offer more convenience to users in booking vehicles and making the payments. Through the platform as a service technology, carsharing firms develop their own mobile applications, while internet of things helps them track and manage their fleet efficiently.

Across the world, Asia-Pacific (APAC) has the largest carsharing fleet size and registered members, and the sharing service providers also make the most here. The increasing demand for shared mobility and growing concerns over air pollution have been the major reasons for the services’ popularity in the region. Due to rapid urbanization and industrialization, the pollution levels in China, India, Taiwan, and other regional countries are increasing rapidly, which is why the governments here are focused on reducing the personal vehicle ownership rate. Due to this, during the forecast period, the market would grow the fastest in the APAC region.

Hence, as carsharing helps keep emission levels down and save money for commuters, it would continue gaining popularity in the near future.