I know these car clubs, and indeed I think they might grow a lot more in the future. But your point about urban populations should not be neglected: at the moment the only places here in the Netherands were they are really working are the centres of old cities, where an apartment with parking space costs easily 50.000 euros more than one without. In other places, the amount of members needed to provide dense coverage is not reachable.

Also, I think your point on status signalling is too simple. It is a part of the much larger phenomenon that people just like to have a car. I know many people, usually men, who read car magazines and can spend hours talking about what car they would like to buy. My uncle enjoys nothing more than washing his car with his children. So he has a second-hand BMW. Some part of that is status, but he is also really attached to it, much more than to other things he owns. He made very sure he got the 6-cylinder engine he liked best, even though this is invisible on the outside. But he likes the sound.

And even apart from car lovers, most people just like that their car is their own, an extension of their house instead of public space. The major reason people are willing to spend hours in traffic jams instead of taking the train is that they prefer to be in their own personal space and not packed between loads of strangers.

Sure, it is possible to put this all in some category and call it 'consumerism' or 'status signalling'. But people are like that. Cars appear, quite universally, to hit a nerve that little other products or services do. Even people who don't feel this way themselves can't discuss transportation without taking this is into account.