Is car sharing profitable in 2025?

Is car sharing profitable in 2025?

In 2024, the global car-sharing market was valued at approximately €8.9 billion, with Europe accounting for over 50.2% of that total. Analysts forecast it will grow at a CAGR of 11.8% between 2025 and 2033, reaching roughly €24.4 billion by 2033. This blend of urbanization, environmental regulation and a growing preference for flexible mobility continues to create fertile ground for operators - yet not every service finds a clear path to profitability.

Success hinges on your location, business model, fleet, operations and local market dynamics. There are strong success stories, but also many high-profile failures. Here’s a closer look at what really affects profitability in today’s car-sharing market - and what you can learn from real-world cases.

What makes a car-sharing business profitable?

Profitability in car sharing boils down to securing enough paid usage while keeping costs under control. Every unused hour or unnecessary expense erodes margins.

Key factors:

  • Fleet utilization – the most important metric. Cars need to be in use several hours each day to cover fixed costs.
  • Operational efficiency – cleaning, charging, relocation, maintenance and insurance add up quickly.
  • Fleet acquisition – leasing usually optimizes cash flow and scalability, but still carries fixed monthly expenses.
  • Pricing and competition – too low cuts margins; too high drives away users. Finding the right balance is essential.
  • Tech stack – a robust platform automates operations, improves customer experience and reduces support costs.

The operators who win are those who combine solid daily usage with lean operations.

❌ PANEK S.A. suspends its car-sharing service to focus on rental

29 March 2025 marked the end of Panek’s car-sharing experiment. Despite peaking at 2 700–3 000 vehicles, Panek never turned a profit in over seven years.

About Panek

  • Launch: Car sharing added in 2017 by Maciej Panek, entirely internally funded (no VC)
  • Fleet mix: City cars, hybrids, EVs, cargo vans and vintage models
  • 2023 acquisition: Regional Rent (+ 45% fleet), making Panek Poland’s largest integrated rental/operator

2024 performance

  • Revenue split: Car sharing ≈ 20 % of total. Traditional rental 80 %
  • Utilization: 0.7–1.0 rides/car/day
  • Maintenance & overhead: Up to €690/car-month
  • Profitability: Negative since inception

Why it failed

  1. Under-utilization: < 1 ride/day vs. ~ 2-4 rides/day needed to cover fixed costs
  2. Price wars: Fierce competition in Warsaw eroded margins and drove up customer-acquisition costs
  3. High OPEX: Parking, maintenance, insurance and vandalism pushed costs > €690 per car each month
  4. Tech drag: Two-year outsourced app development cycle meant poor UX and slow feature delivery
  5. No public support: Missed out on parking incentives or EV subsidies

Faced with persistent losses, Panek’s leadership refocused on profitable core segments: daily/weekly rentals, corporate leasing and Fleet-as-a-Service.

🚗 WiBLE Spain finds its profitable lane in Madrid

WiBLE (50/50 joint venture between Kia Europe and Repsol) launched in 2018 and has just closed its second consecutive year with positive EBITDA.

  • Fleet: 600+ plug-in hybrids (Kia Niro, XCeed, Ceed Tourer)
  • 2024 revenue: €6.93 million (+ 5% vs. 2023)
  • Usage: ~1 500 trips/day ⇒ 2.5 rides/car/day
  • Diversification: Monthly rentals (€599+) now 5% of revenue
  • Market share: ~19% of Madrid’s car-sharing market

Key enablers:

  1. Higher utilization – rides up 15% YoY, driving a 10% lift in core revenue
  2. Fleet scale efficiencies – added 150 vehicles in 2 years, lowering per-unit costs
  3. Service diversification – multi-day and monthly rental options opened new revenue streams

After five years of absorbing fixed-cost drag and depreciation, WiBLE now leverages Madrid’s regulatory environment (low-emission zones, parking benefits) and delivers lean, tech-driven operations.

🚗 SOCAR South Korea: scale + longer rentals

SOCAR (backed by SoftBank, SK Inc. and Lotte Group) operates 20 000 vehicles, generates nearly €300 million in annual turnover and has 20% of South Koreans signed up.

  • Model: Station-based, pay-per-minute with average rental duration of a whoping 12 hrs
  • Segmentation trick: Aging cars shift from on-demand sharing to long-term monthly rentals (10% of revenue), extending resale life with minimal depreciation impact

By pairing massive scale with savvy car lifecycle management, extra-long rental duration, SOCAR converts high utilization into robust profitability.

🚗 Carguru (Latvia)

30 August 2024: Carguru (est. 2017) acquired EV-focused OX Drive (est. 2021), adding 200+ Tesla to the fleet.

  • Growth: From just 30 cars and total budget below 500 000 EUR (2017) to over 1 000 cars (mid-2025) via leasing and strategic partnerships
  • 2023 turnover: €4 million; 435 000 trips (+35.9 %); 7 million km driven; profit €375 600

Outcome: A combined ICE, hybrid and EV fleet—backed by local expertise and strategic acquisitions - has driven strong growth and high utilization.

🎯 Core suggestions for aspiring operators

  1. Target 2–4 rides/day per vehicle
    • Leverage dynamic/off-peak pricing, B2B partnerships (hotels, offices) and event tie-ins.
  2. Contain OPEX via automation
    • Use predictive maintenance, remote diagnostics and gig-economy cleaning/relocation.
  3. Secure municipal support early
    • Negotiate parking incentives, EV charging access and low-emission zone permits.
  4. Choose your tech wisely
    • Build an in-house development team for full control with higher costs, or adopt a proven white-label platform for speed to market, stability and lower costs.
  5. Validate unit economics before scaling
    • Prove break-even utilization in one zone before expanding to others.

With clear benchmarks and smart execution - drawing on lessons from Panek, WiBLE, SOCAR and Carguru - car sharing can still be a highly profitable component of a modern mobility portfolio.

If you’re planning to start or improve your service, ATOM Mobility is ready to help. We’ve built the platform and supported dozens of teams worldwide - reach out, and we’ll share what we’ve learned.

Image credit: https://kursors.lv/2018/03/13/carguru-palielina-autoparku-un-paplasina-darbibas-zonas-mikrorajonos

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🚗 ATOM Mobility launches a new Web-booker for Digital Rental 🗓️ - letting customers book vehicles directly from the website. Frictionless, branded, and enabled by default for all rental merchants ✅

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ATOM Mobility is introducing a new way for users to start their rental journey: the Web-booker widget 🗓️

With this tool, users can book a car (or other vehicle) directly from merchant's website without first downloading the rider app. It creates a smoother entry point for new users while keeping the app central for payments, ID verification, and ride management.

How it works

✅ A dedicated booking link for every merchant
✅ Customers choose area, vehicle, and rental period → confirm booking in seconds
✅ Widget syncs bookings into system automatically
✅ After booking, a QR code + App Store / Google Play links are shown so users can continue in the app
✅ In the mobile app, users finalize payment and ID/driver’s license verification before starting the trip

🎨 The widget matches app’s primary color for a seamless, branded look.
📊 Every booking now shows its Source – App, Web-booker, Dashboard, or API.

👉 Demo it here: app.atommobility.com/rental-widget

Why it matters

Many successful digital rental and mobility platforms combine web and app booking flows to maximize conversion.

Take Turo for example:

  • Customers browsing online can instantly reserve a car on turo.com.
  • But to unlock the car, upload their driver’s license, and manage the trip, they switch to the dedicated mobile app.
  • This dual flow lowers friction for new users while keeping security and payments centralized in the app.

New ATOM Web-booker works the same way - creating an easy on-ramp from website, while letting the app handle verification and payments.

This feature also aligns with the broader industry evolution we covered in Traditional Car Rental vs Peer-to-Peer Car Sharing vs On-demand Car Sharing artticle. As booking models diversify, offering multiple access points - web + app + api – is becoming a standard expectation from customers.

Market context

The global car-sharing market (including peer-to-peer sharing) is projected to reach USD 28.7 billion by 2030, growing from USD 11.5 billion in 2025 at 20% annual growth rate, with digital-first players outpacing traditional operators. One of the biggest success drivers? Reducing onboarding friction and providing automated processes.

  • Majority of new customers discover rental brands online before downloading an app.
  • Peer-to-peer platforms like Turo and Getaround already leverage web-based flows to capture demand at the discovery stage.
  • Traditional operators are also moving to hybrid web+app models to compete with on-demand mobility startups.

The message is clear: giving customers multiple, seamless entry points directly impacts conversion and utilization.

Enabled by default

The Web-booker is enabled by default for all ATOM Mobility digital rental merchants for free. Just place the booking button on your website, and your customers are ready to go.

📩 Want to see how the Web-booker can boost your conversion and simplify rentals? Get in touch with our team and let’s set it up for you.

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💸 ATOM Mobility launches “Offer your price” - a rider-controlled pricing feature. Riders can suggest higher or lower fares within pre-set limits. Boosts demand & helps stand out in competitive ride-hail markets 🚖🌍

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The ride-hailing market is always changing. From Latin America to Eastern Europe, platforms like inDrive have popularized a new norm: letting riders suggest what they want to pay. Now, in response to this growing global trend, ATOM Mobility is proud to introduce: Offer your price – a fully configurable pricing feature built right into your rider app.

💡How It works

Available on all ride-hail projects, this feature lets riders propose a price – higher or lower than the default fare – within operator-set limits. Drivers can then accept or decline based on the offer.

Here’s how it reshapes the experience:

In the Rider app:

  • A new "Offer your price" button appears when selecting a vehicle class.
  • Riders can slide or tap “+/-” buttons to adjust price:
    • e.g. +30% to get a faster ride 🟢
    • or -10% to save on a flexible trip 🔵
  • For scheduled rides, this feature is disabled to keep things predictable.

Smart logic behind the slider:

Your admin dashboard defines the limits – say, up to +500% from regular price and down to -30% – and the app calculates step sizes automatically:

  • +500% limit → 1 step = 5%
  • +100% limit → 1 step = 1%
  • +200% limit → 1 step = 2%

Slider position adapts dynamically, depending on your defined range. And yes – the button color and style can be customized to match your brand 🎨.

On the operator dashboard:

You’ll find complete control and clarity:

  • Enable/disable the feature per vehicle class
  • Set custom % limits for price increase/decrease
  • Price card, exports and ride activity logs are all updated with the adjusted ride price
  • New ride status - Ride requested (adjusted ride price) for transparency in reporting

What drivers see:

In the driver app:

  • Price offers are marked clearly (e.g. 🔻 "Discount requested" or 🔺 "Extra fee offered");
  • Final earnings are adjusted accordingly and logged in driver stats.

Who's already doing this – and winning?

Real-world companies are already proving that rider-defined pricing works:

🚘 inDrive (LATAM, Africa, Asia)
Now one of the top global ride-hailing players outside the U.S. (over 200M downloads, active in 700+ cities across 45+ countries), inDrive built its brand around rider-negotiated pricing. It helps them stand out in price-sensitive markets and win over both drivers and passengers with more transparent pricing dynamics.

🚖 Comin (France)
A local success story, Comin has embraced flexible rider pricing to gain traction in several French cities (onboarded 6,000+ drivers). The feature gives them an edge against larger platforms, offering more freedom for users and better utilization for drivers.

These examples show that letting riders bid their price isn’t just a gimmick – it’s a growth strategy.

From our previosu blog “How to Find Your Niche in the Ride-Hail Market”, we saw how localisation and user control drive loyalty and conversion.

This new pricing flexibility supports:

  • Emerging markets with income-sensitive riders
  • Driver shortages, where riders can tip in real-time
  • Brand positioning, letting you stand apart from competition

🚀 Ready to lead the market?

This is just one of the 300+ features available in ATOM’s white-label ride-hailing platform.

Let’s talk about how to launch or upgrade your app with “Offer your price”, advanced pricing logic, and more tools to dominate your niche.

👉 Contact our team and explore how to become the market leader: www.atommobility.com

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