What is car sharing?
Car sharing is an environmentally friendly, low cost and no hassle alternative to car ownership, car hire and catching taxi cabs.
Car Sharing services like Charter Drive have a network of cars in both on-street (thanks to local councils) and off-street parking bays (or pods) around the city. These are not only dedicated parking bays, but they’re are also free of charge! This is obviously a major win for city slickers, given how expensive parking is and how hard it is to find a parking when you need one.
Like many car sharing services, Charter Drive gives its members 24/7 self-service access to its car fleet. Bookings are made online or by phone and cars opened with the swipe of membership access card.
It becomes self-evident when analysing the table below that, unless you have a unique need that requires that you own a car (e.g. live far from public transport), there is really no good reason to do so.
| Who covers… | With car sharing | With car ownership |
| Parking | Charter Drive | You |
| Insurance | Charter Drive | You |
| Fuel | Charter Drive | You |
| Servicing | Charter Drive | You |
| Cleaning | Charter Drive – min once/week | Most often nobody |
| Annual rego & CTP | Charter Drive | You |
| Depreciation risk exposure | Charter Drive | You |
| Upgrading the car | Charter Drive | You |
A few other interesting thoughts…| Do you… | With car sharing | With car ownership |
| Have access to cars in other states? | Yes
Sydney, Melbourne and soon Brisbane | No |
| Have access to other types of cars | Yes
Charter Drive offers an ever-expanding range of cars | No |
| Pay for the car even when you don’t use it? | No
Aside from nominal membership fee (i.e. cost of a cuppa) | Yes |