SWANSEA: A car you can book for £2 an hour is parked outside SCVS, and it’s the first of a club the council hopes will spread

There is an electric car parked outside Swansea Council for Voluntary Service that anyone in the city can book for £2 an hour.

It is the first car in a Swansea car club run by TrydaNi, the not-for-profit electric car-sharing society that already operates clubs from Bethesda to Llansteffan, and it has arrived with the council’s backing.

The car is a Hyundai Kona electric, five seats and a range of around 240 miles, on a reserved bay in the SCVS car park with its own charger. Members leave it plugged in when they bring it back.

Joining is free. You register on the TrydaNi website, upload your licence and documents, and wait for approval, which SCVS says takes about three working days. After that you book through the app and let yourself in.

What it costs

The hourly rate is £2, capped at £30 for any 24-hour period, plus 16p a mile for the first 100 miles of a booking. Electricity is included for those 100 miles; beyond that you pay for any charging on the road.

So two hours and 40 miles, a shop and a visit, comes to £10.40. A full day and 100 miles is £48. Credits are bought in bundles in advance, and the car is unlocked from the app or a smart card, with no keys involved.

Rebecca Fogarty, the council’s cabinet member for community, said it was for people who cannot afford to run a car and for those who only need one occasionally. “This is a fantastic opportunity for non-car owners to get behind the wheel of an environmentally friendly car for a small fee and travel to wherever they need to go.”

“We know there are people in Swansea that are unable to afford the ongoing day to day costs of owning a vehicle. Others may only require a car for very limited periods and choose not to own one.”

Who can drive it

TrydaNi’s terms across its clubs are drivers aged 25 to 79 who have held a full licence for at least two years, with no more than six points and no previous insurance claims.

Members can also book any other TrydaNi car in Wales, so a Swansea member could pick one up in Aberystwyth or Abergavenny on the same account.

There is a support line on 0300 373 5500 from 8am to 10pm every day, and TrydaNi says it can help anyone without a smartphone to use the car.

One car, for now

Roxane Dacey, head of prevention and community services at SCVS, said the scheme had come out of two years of talking to residents about what stops them getting around. “Public transport is part of the solution, but there was an appetite for a community car scheme as a possible solution to address some of those barriers.”

Cllr Fogarty said the club was limited to one vehicle at present, “but there’s potential for more of these cars to be available in other parts of the city if communities were to show an interest.”

TrydaNi’s model for a new location is 15 people registering interest in an area, followed by a presentation, a dedicated charger and a parking space, which it says takes around six months. The Abergavenny club that opened in June was averaging close to a booking a day by July.

The clubs are member-run. Anyone who has been a member for a month can become a “Community Champion”, earning driving credits worth up to £25 a task for monthly safety checks, cleaning the car and showing new members how it works.

Details and registration are at trydani.org.