Electric cars are conspicuous by their absence from Stockholm’s fleets

At the end of 2024, Volvo Cars announced that it would be discontinuing its prestigious car sharing investment, Volvo On Demand. And by mid-January the cars were a thing of the past. As a result, 600 cars disappeared in Stockholm alone, 400 of which were electric cars. During the year, Aimo Share also switched to private leasing, Ezeto closed its operations and GoMore gave up its own commercial fleet.

Overall, this means that the number of shared cars in fixed carpools has fallen by 23 percent, from 1,512 cars to 1,166. At the same time, private car sharing increased, with the number of active renters rising from 580 to 640, i.e. by around 10 percent.

– Of course there are fewer cars overall now, but others have filled up. Hyre and Kinto in particular have significantly increased the number of cars in Stockholm over the past year. “It wasn’t quite as big a loss as we had feared,” says Anna Lindén from the Environment Agency in Stockholm, who was responsible for the report.

The use of Volvo on Demand also has a major influence on the proportion of electric cars in Stockholm’s fleets. Today 8 percent of cars are purely electric cars.

– It’s far too little. We, and not least Stockholm Parkering, are working on expanding charging stations to make the transition easier. But we realize that more is needed, says Stockholm City Councilor for Transport Lars Strömgren (MP).

One of the reasons, as the companies express it, is that the price difference between the parking spaces in the garages where there are charging facilities and the spaces they have today is large. According to Lars Strömgren, there is a dialogue with the car sharing operators in Stockholm and that they are currently working with various forms of discounts and package prices to reduce costs.

“But it is something we need to work more on in the Stockholm parking budget,” he says.

Lars Strömgren, pictured Together with the opposition and the car-sharing operators, he has long been campaigning for parking spaces to be reserved for shared cars on street lots. In his opinion, it would make the installation of charging points much easier. But the problem requires government intervention.

– I have teamed up with Dennis Wedin (the opposition Moderate Citizens’ Council in the city of Stockholm, editor’s note) to bring about a change, and it is a shame that his government is not listening, considering that there is already a ready-made bill that would give municipalities the opportunity to provide carpoolers with their own parking spaces, says Lars Strömgren.

The good news, however, is that the loss did not spell disaster for accessibility. According to the analysis, 68 percent of Stockholm city residents have a carpool within 400 meters of their home, which is the same proportion as in 2024.

– It’s still surprisingly high. And I think it’s mostly about spreading knowledge about where they are and creating better visibility, says Anna Lindén.

Read more about mobility and the green transformation of the transport sector at di.se/mobilitet