Carsharing Market Overview
The increasing concerns being raised in many countries over the rising greenhouse gas emissions and the rapid environmental damage being caused due to the large-scale usage of oil and gas-powered vehicles are fueling the popularity of novel mobility solutions such as carsharing services. Moreover, the deteriorating air quality levels in several countries because of harmful emissions from vehicles are making the governments of these countries implement various initiatives and strict environmental protection policies.
For example, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced in November 2018 that the city intends to initiate the development of public parking spaces for facilitating the easier and hassle-free parking of public cars. The initiative is also aimed at reducing the private ownership of cars in the city. Furthermore, carsharing is turning out to be an excellent method for curbing the pollution levels, without negatively impacting the commuting needs of people.
Carsharing Market Size
The growing adoption of carsharing services would massively reduce the number of private vehicles running on roads, which would, in turn, minimize the amount of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases being released into the atmosphere. Hence, with the increasing usage of these services, the global carsharing market is set to demonstrate huge expansion in the forthcoming years. Based on car type, the market is divided into executive, luxury, and economy.
Out of these, the economy category registered the highest growth in the market in the past. This because of the large-scale deployment of economy cars for carsharing services all over the world in the last few years, primarily because of the greater fuel economy of these vehicles in comparison to the executive and luxury cars. In addition to this, the high pollution levels and the soaring gasoline prices are pushing up the popularity of these vehicles for carsharing purposes.
When fuel type is taken into consideration, the carsharing market is divided into fuel- and electric-based cars. Between these, the fuel-based cars are predicted to dominate the market, in terms of volume, in the upcoming years. However, the growing electrification of automobiles and the rising enactment of strict environmental policies are hampering the growth of the fuel-based cars category and instead, propelling the advancement of the electric-based cars. Moreover, electric cars have lower maintenance requirements than the fuel-based ones.
As a result, the fuel-based category will register huge expansion in the market in the forthcoming years. Globally, the Asia-Pacific (APAC) carsharing market is currently the most lucrative one, as per the findings of P&S Intelligence, a market research firm based in India. In APAC, the market is recording the highest growth in China. This is because many Chinese cities increased the utilization of electric vehicles in various carsharing platforms in 2017 for achieving a greener and cleaner environment.
Carsharing Market Trends
Hence, it is safe to say that the demand for carsharing services would shoot-up across the world in the upcoming years, mainly because of the rising requirement for shared mobility solutions, on account of the escalating pollution levels in many countries due to the large-scale usage of fossil fuel-based vehicles.
