A lot of work over the years has gone into researching, developing, trialing, promoting, and scaling efficient transit systems such as shared mobility platforms. The explosion of online shopping has also led to growth of the on-demand delivery economy. These aggregation platforms are a great enabler for electric vehicles whose business case on a total cost of ownership basis really stands out for high utilization vehicles. The value proposition just gets better the more miles the vehicles are driven in their product lifecycle. The shift from ownership to usership coupled with carpooling unlocks efficiencies, financial savings, and carbon emission reductions.
The devastating effects of the coronavirus have led to sweeping changes in the way people live their lives at the moment. Staying at home to minimize exposure is highly recommended in affected countries. Some countries, such as Italy, France, Spain, and of course China have initiated strict stay-at-home laws. In this time of Covid-19, it is highly advisable to be conscious of one’s surroundings and keep a safe distance from other people when one does have to go out and about.
“Social distancing” is the term on everyone’s minds, or at least it should be. Minimizing contact with others as well as surfaces in one’s environment in these times essentially means avoiding shared ride platforms, equipment, public places, and modes of transport utilized by a large number of people. Not much is known at this moment with regards to how long the virus lasts on surfaces, and hence people may start to minimize using these high utilization and high traffic platforms such as the on-demand ride carpooling platforms, shared electric bikes, and shared scooters (those helmets!). In the immediate term, people may opt to use their own vehicles and be in their own environment which they can control to some extent. Depending on how long the current pandemic lasts, social distancing may become an ingrained practice in the short to medium term. Once the threat of the coronavirus has been contained, it may take a while for some to adjust to the old ways before social distancing. Or will it? Will a large majority of the population quickly forget and move on? Will people go back to looking at owning a car as prized possession, or will they be enticed to embrace the usership/shared economy again en masse.
Fleet operators in car sharing and subscription sharing programs have been a great platform to introduce a lot of people to electric cars. These platforms have also helped reduce the carbon emissions as users of the platform park their ICE cars more often and, in some instances, sell them all together. These platforms also help some consumers delay or even suspend plans to purchase their own cars. Theses platforms will ultimately reduce the number of private cars on the road, further reducing emissions. Let’s hope this pandemic will not last too long to upend the rise and rise of shared mobility platforms.
Image: Consumer Electronics Show CES in Las Vegas, by Kyle Field | CleanTechnica
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