Europcar Reveal The Cost Of Dormant Urban Cars To Motorists

Released on: June 01, 2010, 6:48 am
Author: Europcar
Industry: Automotive

Europcar has revealed new research that shows the cost of dormant urban motors is £65bn.

Parked cars clogging up residential roads in the UK’s cities is a long-familiar sight, but the cost of dormant urban motors (DUMs) is today revealed to be £65bn a year*.

According to new research by Europcar, which has just launched its free WeDeliver service of vehicles to customers' door, car ownership for the time-poor city dwellers costs them £3.50 for every mile they cover - excluding fuel.

On average a city car owner only spends 4 hours, 40 minutes at the wheel each week - meaning that their car remains parked for 97% of the time**.

With the depreciation of their car***, and the cumulative with costs for maintenance, insurance, fines and parking totalling £5,328.96 a year, it’s no wonder that nearly half (48%) would sell their car if there was a convenient alternative to ownership.

The nature of city life also means that two thirds (66.6%) of car owners still regularly opt to use public transport, cycle or walk to cover short distances and avoid congestion or parking stress.

Over half (51%) admit that expense is the most stressful part of owning a car, a quarter (24%) cite maintenance, while 44% say that their car has been damaged or vandalised due to being left parked outside for prolonged periods of time.

Catriona Lougher, Marketing Director at Europcar commented: "This research shows how busy lifestyles and the nature of urban living and travel has filled out cities with dormant urban motors.

"Europcar has developed a free weDeliver service as a solution to this trend, meaning would-be motorists can have a vehicle dropped off at their door at a time that suits them and picked up again when they’re finished with it - for free. That’s perfect for Brits in cities who feel they don’t use their car often enough, but want the freedom of a car when they want do to travel."

WeDeliver can be the perfect stress busting solution for the city dweller. The new service includes free delivery within 15 miles of an address and offers a rather speedy one hour delivery window even in Britain’s busiest city, London. To make things even easier customers can now have their car delivered to a home, business or even hotel address**** making car rental queues a thing of the past.

- ENDS -

Notes to editors:
Survey commissioned by Europcar and carried out by OnePoll, across 3,000 Britons living in the UK’s top cities by population.

* Calculation based on the UK’s top 10 cities by population
** The average city-dweller’s car is used for 4.6 hours per week
*** Depreciation calculated with What Car? depreciation tool, using models across Ford, Volkswagen, and Honda ranges, based on average car ownership of 3.3 years according to survey results.
**** Central London Hotels only

About weDeliver:
-Free delivery and collection when hiring a car for two days or more.
-Free delivery within 15 miles of the nearest station
-One hour delivery window
-Delivery within central London now available
-Delivery to a home, business or hotel address

Can be used in conjunction with Airport Connect for an even easier transfer. For more information: http://www.europcar.co.uk/EBE/module/render/weDeliver

About Europcar:
Europcar is the European leader in passenger car and light utility vehicle rentals. The company serves business and leisure customers throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia-Pacific. Excluding franchise operations, in 2009 Europcar signed 9.5 million rental contracts, with 7,000 employees and a fleet exceeding 190,000 vehicles.

PR Contact:
Gloria Trapezaris
PR Officer
Second Floor
15 Bermondsey Square
London
SE1 3UN
020 7234 9150
www.europcar.co.uk