EV car sharing platform to launch in Auckland

Auckland is set to get its own car sharing platform with electric vehicles. Electricity provider Mercury and start-up Cityhop are offering a new transport alternative that the group helps will address some of Auckland’s transport challenges. They say that the addition of EVs to Cityhop’s established car sharing platform brings together two parts of the solution to the problems caused by too much city traffic: clean electric-powered vehicles to reduce pollution and noise, and car sharing to reduce the number of vehicles. “Car sharing and electric vehicles are part of the solution for decongesting Auckland and reducing pollution,” said Mayor Phil Goff, who himself drives an electric car. “Every car share vehicle takes up to 13 cars off our roads and every electric vehicle is one less car sending carbon into our atmosphere.” Mercury and Cityhop’s EV car-sharing trial is being extended with a second EV available at the Downtown carpark in the CBD – the same location where Mercury installed the Auckland CBD’s first ever EV charger in 2015. The new car-share vehicle is a Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV), offering the option of a larger SUV while giving drivers another EV model to try. It is located in the Auckland CBD, where over 60,000 people live and around 65,000 work each day, including 1,500 current Cityhop members. The scheme follows the launch of an EV ride sharing platform earlier this month in Christchurch, a collaboration between Kiwi fleet management company Yoogo and the Christchurch City Council.