‘Car ownership a thing of the past’

Oxford now has more shared electric vehicles per head of population than any other UK city with the roll out of 10 new car club EVs on the city’s streets.

The cars are available to anyone for pay-as-you-go hire which means residents and visitors to Oxford have more opportunity to make their journeys in a zero-emission car than anywhere else in the country.

Co-wheels Car Club has added the 100% electric BMW i3 4-door hatchbacks which are based at 10 locations across the city. Some existing bays have been switched from petrol to electric but there are also new on-street EV locations in Jericho and West Oxford.

The new EV roll out is part of the Go Ultra Low Oxford project, a government funded project run by Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council to provide electric car charging points across the city which will power the vehicles. The aim of the project is to reduce air pollution in the city and further lower Oxford’s carbon emissions by giving more people the option of driving EVs.

Richard Falconer, director of Co-wheels, said, ‘Co-wheels was the first UK car club to introduce electric cars and this is one of our biggest rolls out of EVs to date. On top of the three existing car club EVs in the city this means Oxford has now taken the lead with more shared electric vehicles per head of population than any other UK city we know of. Which means that even if you don’t own an EV in Oxford you can still go zero emissions.’

Councillor Tom Hayes, Cabinet Member for Zero Carbon Oxford at Oxford City Council commented, ‘With climate change the direct result of our broken economy, we must tackle our climate crisis in ways that make our society fairer. We’re thrilled that the co-operative Co-wheels Cars will be expanding in Oxford by investing in electric cars.

‘Car ownership promises to be a thing of the past before long, so it’s particularly great to see more opportunities for car sharing that will protect our health and climate. Oxford is determined to be the leading city of the UK for reducing car journeys and ensuring that the majority of however many cars are left on our roads are zero emissions.”