2020-01-17 - vozilla is dead

since about 2-3 years in Wrocław there is a great initiative of a electric car sharing called vozilla. it works in a very straight forward way – you register, download mobile app and when you need to catch a ride, you find car nearest to your current location, go there, rent it and enjoy the ride. it turned out to be very convenient, as most of the time there was at least 1-2 cars in 5-10 minutes walking range. no more waiting for a taxi. easy shopping, if you need to have a car waiting for you afterwards, etc. it worked so well, that if not for children, who require special seats that ain't very mobile, i would actually consider resigning from having a car altogether, as i do not need it that often to make it economically viable. long story short – user-wise it worked like a charm!

today i was notified that vozilla is pulling off from the initiative. it's a very bed news, as both the concept of car sharing and decreasing emissions from combustion engines in urban area seamed like a step forward. while vast majority of city pollution comes from (coil+junk) house heating systems, in a traffic-jammed city internal combustion engines add up to the equation as well. in fact, there are days when you can literally smell it in the air. the way i think about both these major pollutants is – they will be gone, eventually. many countries already have plans to phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles, some of them as early as 2025 (Norway) and some of them as restrictive as no-fossil-fuels-new-or-used at all (Sri Lanka – 2040). some more details regarding moving away from fossil fueled engines in different countries. i guess in 20-50 years these cars will be out of our lives and we'll look at the “dark, smelly times” the same way we today look at medieval “throw waste out of the window” policies. “not my problem” kind of thinking has to change. i'm very sorry to hear we're taking a small step backwards, at my very own backyard…