car-share company Loop for an undisclosed sum in a deal closing on March 31.<\/span><\/p>\nLoop<\/p>\n
has around 20 vehicles in its fleet and charges them out at $15 per hour.<\/p>\n
Mevo founder Erik Zydervelt says the Loop deal is a “stepping stone to a launch into Auckland later this year.”<\/p>\n
At the same time, Mevo is entering a $30 million vehicle supply agreement with the Ebbett Group which will go toward “further expansion of the Mevo fleet”.<\/p>\n
Waikato-based Ebbett has 17 dealerships around the North Island and is the current owner of Loop, which it launched in 2019.<\/p>\n
Zydervelt says the $30m will equate to around 600 cars being added to Mevo’s fleet.<\/p>\n
The Mevo co-founder would not give a time-frame on the expansion, but it would easily make his company the largest car-share operator at a time when the various contenders’ apps and websites indicate that the number of car-share rides available at any one time in Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch<\/p>\n
can be measured in the dozens (the companies themselves are shy of putting official numbers in the public domain; in late 2019, shortly before Covid hit, Mevo’s fleet was put at 60).<\/p>\n
It could potentially see a business that grows large enough in its own right to escape greenwashing accusations (Mevo’s 32 per cent owner Z and Zilch’s 40 per cent shareholder Genesis Energy both use car-share investments as show pony assets in their corporate marketing, despite each business equating to a rounding area next to their total multi-billion operations).<\/p>\n
Mevo was founded in the capital in 2014, but had its breakthrough moment in 2018 when it negotiated a “free-floating” carpark deal with Wellington City Council. Previously, you had to return a vehicle to the same place. Under the new deal, Mevo cars can be hired in one place, then left in any council-controlled parking space.<\/p>\n
A new Auckland Transport policy launched in November 2019 allowed Mevo, in principle, to bring the same free-floating car park modus operandi to Auckland – but its launch was headed off by the outbreak.<\/p>\n
In its 2019 report, AT said it would create up to 400 car parking spaces (which would equate to around 5 per cent of the council-controlled total), at its own cost, that would be reserved for car-share services.<\/p>\n
Once it arrives in Auckland later this year, Mevo’s free-floating, escooter and ebike-like model, will give Mevo a point of difference over the established City Hop (whose cars must be returned to the same parking space) and Christchurch-based Zilch, which allows you to pick up a car in one zone then drop it in another (e.g. the CBD to the airport or vice versa). The all-electric Zilch arrived in Auckland in late 2019, only to be hit by the pandemic and is still at a beachhead phase.<\/p>\n
Like rivals, Mevo has a focus on low emissions and has received a $500,000 grant from Crown agency the EECA to go toward the purchase of electric vehicles for his fleet (Zilch and City Hop have also benefited from the matching, contestable funding).<\/p>\n
Zydervelt would not comment on how many of the 600 new vehicles might be EVs.<\/p>\n
But he argued that every vehicle, whether petrol or electric, would contribute to lower emissions regardless. He cited a Wellington City Council study, based on 2019 data from Mevo and City Hop, which found every car-share vehicle took 11.4 vehicles off the road (in Auckland, your correspondent has sold his car in favour of using a mix of solutions including City Hop – more on that project shortly).<\/p>\n
Mevo’s fleet in Wellington consists of a mix of petrol-powered VW Polo and Audio A3 e-tron electric vehicles.<\/p>\n
The Polos cost 60c a minute or $15 an hour, the e-trons 60c per minute or $25 per hour.<\/p>\n
The pricing includes petrol (or electricity), insurance and up to 200km. Deals include $30 to have a Polo overnight (6pm to 8am). An e-tron overnighter costs $50.<\/p>\n
All cars are reserved, located and unlocked using an app<\/p>\n
Car-share companies took a knock in level 4 when they weren’t deemed essential services.<\/p>\n
Regardless, Zydervelt said his company was “growth-profitable” – or could make a profit at any point, if it chose to stop spending money on expansion.<\/p>\n
Z said in its 2020 annual report: “Mevo, which, prior to Covid-19 Alert level 4 restrictions, had its best year in terms of growth in demand for its services … Our staff
increasingly use Mevo in Wellington with 3.3 tonnes CO2 emissions offset from Z business trips.” It anticipated growth ahead, given Mevo had gained AT clearance to enter the much larger Auckland market, “paving the way for the offer to be more appealing to a wide range of customers and investors”.<\/p>\n
Source: Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Z Energy-backed Mevo is making two deals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":115847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23051],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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