Auckland car-sharing goes electric

24 May 2017 – Mercury is providing the electric car, and Cityhop the ‘by-the-hour’ car sharing platform. Together they’re offering a new transport alternative that could ultimately help address Auckland’s transport challenges.

It’s a one-car-at-a-time approach to complement the multi-year, big budget projects being discussed and implemented across the city. The difference is that electric vehicles are here right now, and any driver can join in the movement.

“It’s easy to see that our city has too many cars. We’re crawling along traffic-choked roads every day,” says Ben Carter, Development Manager of Cityhop, New Zealand’s first cars-by- the-hour service.

“Our car sharing members are ‘drivers of change’. Their example shows people and businesses that it is possible to live one car less. People can now have access to a car when they need it, meaning they drive less, save money and reduce congestion. International research has found that every car share vehicle takes 9-13 privately owned cars off the road.”

Adding an electric vehicle (EV) to Cityhop’s established car sharing platform, in an Auckland first, brings together two parts of the solution to the problem of too much traffic polluting the environment: clean electric vehicles to reduce pollution and noise, and car sharing to reduce the number of vehicles.

“We’ve partnered with Mercury to add an electric vehicle from its fleet to the Cityhop cars already available in Auckland,” says Ben. “It’s an exciting opportunity for our 2,500 drivers to drive an electric car, while exploring how car sharing can potentially reduce corporate fleets.”

Mercury has had EVs in its fleet since 2013 and has led the charge among other corporates. In a joint initiative with Air New Zealand it has gained buy-in from business leaders representing 30 organisations to transition at least 30% of their company vehicle fleets to plug-in EVs by 2019.

“We’ve added this EV to Cityhop’s fleet to share the experience and allow more drivers to find out for themselves how EVs live up to their reputation as a smooth, quiet, and quick-off-the-mark ride,” says Mercury executive Matthew Olde.

“We are also excited for our Newmarket-based Mercury teams to have an opportunity to try car-sharing, as we learn about how car sharing might address some of Auckland’s transport challenges.”

“With around 80 per cent of New Zealand’s electricity supplied from renewable energy sources it’s important that we get out of the slow lane and into the fast lane of e-mobility. We are partnering with Cityhop to learn as much as we can about how, why and when people and businesses turn to different, electrified ways of getting around so that we can help promote change that makes Auckland and New Zealand better for all of us.”

Signing up with Cityhop only takes a minute, so any driver can take the wheel of an EV. Cityhop’s Nissan Leaf is located in Newmarket on the second floor of the Tournament car park on the corner of Khyber Pass and York St. Find out more about Cityhop here.

ENDS

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