During the last quarter of 2020, despite the pandemic, car sales and sharing improved significantly. Most of the countries including the USA, Australia, and the UK were still battling the pandemic. But still, we saw an interesting turn of events with the increase in car sales and sharing trends. The Guardian shared an interesting take on this phenomenon, citing it as a “boom as pandemic upends transportation”.

COVID-19 lockdowns and an increase in working from home worldwide have limited the need to own private vehicles. It will cause more consumers to consider new models of vehicle ownership, says GlobalData, a leading data, and analytics company.

Tough times for public transit, Lyft, and Uber

According to The Guardian:

Public transportation has been pummeled by the pandemic. The Bay Area transit system, Bart, is losing $37m a month from decreased ridership. A decline in sales tax revenue and the MTA in New York City saw up to a 90% drop in ridership in the weeks following the coronavirus lockdowns. About 47% of consumers plan to reduce the usage of public transport in the future, according to data from the market research firm Euromonitor.

The car sales and sharing improved during the pandemic

Car sharing

For Americans and Europeans who can’t afford to outright buy a car or don’t want to commit to car payments, car-sharing services such as Gig, Turo and Zipcar have presented a second option. This caused a “drastic increase” in Zipcar reservations in recent weeks as some shelter-in-place measures lift. Riders in New York City and the Bay Area reported Zipcar being booked out weeks in advance.

Car sales

Since the whole car renting business has died because of no tourism. The car rental giants like Enterprise started selling their fleets to stay afloat. The car auction companies started auctioning the cars hence causing a sudden increase in car sales.

World Economic Forum states:

Used-car sites in India, Mexico and the UK have achieved $1 billion ‘unicorn’ valuations.

Useful links:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/used-cars-unicorns-pandemic-spending/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/aug/12/car-sales-covid-19-coronavirus-uber-zipcar

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