Car sharing plan launched for Tesla and other EVs

Australia’s first company specialising in electric vehicle rentals and hire cars is now branching out into a new business – EV car sharing – where the owners of Tesla and other EVs rent out their cars.

Slava Kozlovskii, the director of Sydney-based Eveeh has so far signed up 15 owners of Tesla Model S vehicles and Nissan Leafs, and is looking for at leat another 10 to launch the car-sharing service at the end of the month.

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Kozlovskii says the EV owners are motivated by the need to help pay for their vehicles – the Model S starting price is around $120,000 – or simply to “share the love” of driving an EV.

EV’s have a high up-front cost, but much lower running costs. That provides a greater incentive to use the car more often rather than leaving it in the garage. The idea behind car-sharing – and many predict that this is the future model of car ownership – is to maximise the use of the asset.

The other attraction, Kozlovskii says, is that EVs much have fewer moving parts and so less wear and tear, so the idea of renting out the vehicle is not so forbidding. “Wear and tear does not affect an EV as much as a petrol car,” he says.

The biggest challenge was insurance – a standard comprehensive plan won’t cover an EV owner renting out his car, but Kozlovskii has negotiated a deal with insurers that provides that cover – as long as it happens through his company.

Eveeh already has two Tesla Model S and one Nissan Leaf in its fleet in Sydney and Melbourne, and its clients are mostly wedding parties or people wanting to experience or enjoy driving an EV for a day.

This is the same principle that he will take to the car-sharing model, only that he will be pooling cars owned by individuals in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane, and elsewhere if they are interested.

“The idea is for renters to go to the website, search for location and vehicles, and the availability of people’s cars, and if happy with the options, request a booking.

“The owners will create a profile, choose when they want to make their EVs available, and while we will provide guidance on pricing, it the actual fee is their choice.”

So far 15 EV owners have been signed up, a roughly equal mixture of Teslas and Nissan Leafs. His pre-launch target is 25 and – with investor backing, he can scale that up quickly – and he would like to sign up some owners of BMW i3 EVs, just to complete the mix of attractive vehicles.

“This is another early step in the sharing economy. These plans exist, but only with standard vehicles. We don’t want petrol engines, we believe the transition should happen much faster,” Kozlovskii says.

“The EV niche is small but it poised to grow quickly. There are only around 3,500 EVs in the whole country, but the growth rates will be stunning.”

And once people drive an EV, he says, they find it hard to go back to the internal combustion engine. “All the reviews we had, all of them have been five stars, we haven’t had a single four star rating. People love the experience.

Comments

14 responses to “Car sharing plan launched for Tesla and other EVs”

  1. Kevin Brown Avatar
    Kevin Brown

    The all electric Renault Zoe 4 door small car is available in the UK from £13,990/A$22,660 including the installation of a home charging station http://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/renault/zoe. Why isn’t it available here??

    1. Slava Kozlovskii Avatar
      Slava Kozlovskii

      Kevin, It’s a shame that we are limited with EV options here. In the UK you can also get a Hyundai Ioniq, VW eGolf, Ford Focus Electric, an upgraded LEAF etc… Most manufacturers are complaining about lack of government support here. We want to build a car-sharing community and enable more people to drive electric regardless of what govt does.

      EV owners – see https://www.eveeh.com.au/signup if you are interested in joining.

      1. Kevin Brown Avatar
        Kevin Brown

        Hi Slava Thanks for your comments. EV’s in Australia are still too expensive. The Tesla Model 3 at $37000? is still
        pushing the affordability envelope but the Renault Zoe price in the UK appears to be very affordable? I would gladly buy one tomorrow at this price even if you were not offering your car share scheme that I fully endorse. I hope it will not be long before I can trade in my fully depreciated, 100% reliable 2007 Hyundai Getz for an affordable EV!

        1. Slava Kozlovskii Avatar
          Slava Kozlovskii

          Thanks for the support and completely agree regarding the prices. We would love to see more EVs on the roads and I am sure we will see big changes in the next few years.

          1. Kevin Brown Avatar
            Kevin Brown

            Renault where are you?

          2. Greg Hudson Avatar
            Greg Hudson

            Sleeping

          3. stalga Avatar
            stalga

            I’m sure there would be demand for some motorcycles too.

        2. Greg Hudson Avatar
          Greg Hudson

          G’Day Kevin. If you think the Model 3 is going to be AU$37k you might be a little shocked when it actually makes it on to the market. I’m expecting at least AU$55k (my opinion only)…

    2. Jonathan Prendergast Avatar
      Jonathan Prendergast

      For it to stack up for the manufacturers, they need some scale of market. It would be a great cost if they set up sales, service, support, parts, maintenance etc, but then only sell a few cars.

      Not only is Australia a smaller market than the UK, but there is less proven market for EVs and little government support. It is certainly an area where some good government policy and initiatives could create a big impact.

      1. Kevin Brown Avatar
        Kevin Brown

        Hi Jonathan, I absolutely acknowledge the point that you make about scale but it seems to me that a $22,660 Renault Zoe that comes with with $0 fuel would unleash a tidal wave of of transition to EV’s. I will be cresting the wave.

        1. Jonathan Prendergast Avatar
          Jonathan Prendergast

          I’m an optimist too! Maybe more so than the manufacturers.

          I guess as others aren’t leading the market quite yet here, they can take their time a bit. Just like Netflix didn’t bother until competitors started gearing up.

  2. Jonathan Prendergast Avatar
    Jonathan Prendergast

    Great to see such innovative business models emerging to accelerate innovation and adoption of technology. Well done Slava!

  3. George Darroch Avatar
    George Darroch

    Owners will need to be sure that this is compatible with their warranties and insurance. But otherwise, full steam ahead!

  4. BeyondZeroEmissions Avatar
    BeyondZeroEmissions

    Canberra – please!

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