Dear customers and friends,

When we launched WhipCar in April 2010, we embarked on a very exciting mission. We were the first to offer car owners the chance to make better use of their cars and offset the rising costs of motoring by renting to their neighbours.

We are sad to say that, at this time, we have decided to close WhipCar.

In many ways, WhipCar has been a success. We were able to shift commonly-held perceptions of car sharing and ownership with the help of so many integral WhipCar community members. We have been able to boast that drivers in urban areas such as central London could access convenient, cost-effective and friendly WhipCar rentals within five minutes of their doorstep.

However, while so many of you saw the future, we have discovered there are still barriers to widespread adoption of peer-to-peer car rental in the UK. As a small team with limited resources, we have taken a good long look at these scaling challenges. And, after much thought, we have made the extremely difficult decision to close WhipCar. We would like to thank our wonderful community members, our colleagues and our investors for their incredible support over the past three exciting years.

What this means for our customers:

• Beginning March 12th 2013, we are no longer accepting any new bookings or new membership. Members will no longer be able to log-in and access our site.
• Bookings due to begin on or after March 12th have been cancelled, and all affected drivers have been fully refunded.
• Owners with bookings ending in March will be paid during the week beginning March 18th and will be notified when this payment has been issued.

If you are a WhipCar member, you may want to take a look at our FAQs for some useful information. If you have any further questions regarding our closure, an interest in our technology or opportunities for the future, feel free to get in touch by emailing us at hi@whipcar.com. Please understand that we are prioritising our existing members when responding to incoming email and that we will try to get back to you as soon as we can.

Thank you again for your support and for taking the leap with us into peer-to-peer car rental. We’re proud to have had a chance to push the boundaries of the sharing economy, and we can’t wait to see where it heads next.

All the best,
The WhipCar Team