Private car-sharing EV
BY IAN PORTER | 21st May 2012
The Mitsubishi iMiEV will join more than 100 other GoGet vehicles in the company’s Melbourne car-share network, with the majority being small Toyotas and Hyundais.
GoGet has more than 800 cars stationed across Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne and all are available to more than 19,000 GoGet subscribers.
The car-share company was invited to install the Mitsubishi iMiEV in the garage below the Claremont residential tower in South Yarra by developers Red.c and Michael L Yates Pty Ltd.
“When we started in 2003 we imagined having car-share vehicles in residential buildings and were told ‘that’s a crazy idea, what are you thinking?’,” said GoGet co-founder Bruce Jeffreys.
“In those initial years it was very difficult to get people believing in car share, even by parking on the street.
“So, to be here in a development building, seeing a car-share facility with Australia’s first electric car in a public development, it’s a big day.”Mr Jeffreys said most people living close in to the city don’t need to own a car.
“There are many people in Sydney who don’t need a car every day. Most of the time they can get around without a car.
“But they do get stuck on those occasions when they need a car, so we started Australia’s first car-share network.”
GoGet subscribers pay a monthly fee and 39 cents a kilometre. For casual users, the monthly fee is $9 and the hourly rate is $8.45 while, for frequent users, the monthly rate is $29 and the hourly rate is $5.65.
These fees cover everything, including petrol, avoiding all the costs associated with owning a vehicle such as depreciation, maintenance, fuel and insurance.
“They book a car by the hour, they use it, bring it back and it’s there for the next person to use,” said Mr Jeffreys.
“We give people brand new fuel-efficient cars to use and it means that, for most of the time, they can ride their bikes, catch a tram, walk around and the car becomes something they use just for the odd trip.”Bosch, a major parts supplier to the local car-makers, has installed its recharging equipment in the Claremont garage that, crucially, will be controlled by Bosch’s e-mobility software system.
All the residents in the Claremont tower will have access to GoGet’s vehicles, with several other cars stationed in buildings in the same street.
Bosch chief executive Gavin Smith said the deal with GoGet was not exclusive.
“We are happy to work with any network operator to enable the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs),” he told GoAuto.
Mr Smith said it was important that all companies working with EVs should cooperate in these early stages of the adoption of EVs.
He said this was the thinking behind Bosch’s e-mobility system, which has been designed to be adaptable to any charging network that is established for EVs.
If a network operator – whether it is Better Place, ChargePoint or EcoTality – adopts the Bosch system, EV drivers will be able to recharge their vehicles at the recharging points installed by those companies using the Bosch system.
“It allows anyone to use any recharging network if those network operators subscribe to e-mobility,” said Mr Smith.
“If an EV driver can’t use any recharge point, it’s going to be a barrier to adoption (of EVs). We have to work together to increase the rate of adoption and remove the barriers.”
