'Like having a pool but useful': Why more Australians will share electric cars
What if you didn't need to own a car? What if you could just pop downstairs and borrow one whenever you need a ride?
That is the proposition being made to residents in an increasing number of Australian apartment blocks, office buildings, hotels and even retirement villages.
It's part of a new trend in transport, an extension of car-sharing services, and a way many drivers are trying electric vehicles for the first time.
Transport experts say the trend could also have significant consequences for car ownership in Australia, and the number of car parks we see in future buildings.
The trend falls under the umbrella of "shared mobility" and it is being introduced as an amenity in new developments, large buildings where car parks are scarce, and urban apartment blocks where residents want to reduce their costs.
Ohmie Go founder and chief executive Kyle Bolto said the company had 14 shared mobility spaces operating in buildings around Australia, another 20 under contract, and he wanted it to be "in at least 100 buildings by the end of 2023".
Convincing building owners to take up the service was simple, he said, once he explained how it worked.
"We've got a bit of a throwaway line: we say it's like having a pool but useful," Mr Bolto said.
Shared mobility services like Ohmie Go offer electric car fleet packages. The company provides vehicles as well as chargers and electrical infrastructure, insurance, registration, regular detailing, roadside assistance, and a software system for residents to book and pay for vehicles.
Residents are charged modest fees to rent the shared cars — driving a Tesla Model 3 for an hour costs $16.50 from Ohmie Go, for example — and Mr Bolto said the service was changing the way residents viewed their own vehicles.
"We are genuinely now starting to see some of our users say, 'why on earth do I own a car? This makes no sense'," he said.
"We have a mission to change the way people think about vehicles.
"For certain demographics in outer suburbs, regional areas, rural areas, we understand (owning a car), but in dense urban environments, we're really trying to use the transition to electric vehicles as an excuse to say, 'you don't have to buy your own car that sits there 90 per cent of the time'."
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ABOUT OHMIE GO
Ohmie GO is Australia’s first electric mobility platform for buildings, which was founded in 2018. Ohmie GO is building the future of electric mobility and transport in partnership with Australia's most innovative and sustainable players in the property industry, changing the relationship between buildings and mobility.
Media contact: press@ohmiego.com
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Remove the friction of installing and managing EV chargers in your building. An end-to-end managed solution handling building make ready, installation, energy management, customer experience, and more.
The Electric Mobility Platform for Buildings
We've worked tirelessly with developers, earning the trust of the largest players in the property industry. Today, our solutions can be found in some of the most progressive buildings in Australia. Ohmie GO has always believed in offering more than just a service; we provide an end-to-end managed e-mobility platform for building residents. Our journey began in 2018 with exclusive on-demand access to shared electric vehicles, conveniently located in building carparks. In 2022, we expanded our offerings to include sought-after shared micro-mobility solutions, such as e-bikes and e-scooters. Now, we're taking the next logical step: removing the complexity and simplifying the process for buildings to deliver and scale world-class EV charging solutions without compromising the resident experience.
Ohmie GO is the first end-to-end electric mobility platform for buildings, designed as a modular, mix-and-match solution. This flexibility allows buildings to customise their solutions to meet specific needs, eliminating the need for separate providers and multiple apps for different services. We offer all electric mobility solutions in a single hub, delivering a seamless experience for users.
Introducing: Smart EV Charging
We're introducing two end-to-end managed smart EV charging solutions: "OUR Charger," a shared charger located in the building for resident use, and "MY Charger," a private charger situated in an individual resident's parking bay.
Both charging solutions include ongoing service and maintenance, charging history, payment processing, and much more. We spent time developing a resident experience that is consistent across all our e-mobility solutions, and unique to in-building charging. A building's electric mobility hub is available to residents via the Ohmie GO app. Here, they can book and access all their solutions, including charging, with the touch of a button. The only difference is that "MY Charger" appears exclusively in an individual resident's Ohmie GO app and is not visible to other residents.
Some of the key benefits include:
- Smart Energy Management: Install more EV chargers that intelligently share power to avoid costly upgrades and get the best charging experience.
- Billing & Payment: Easily allocate energy costs to residents for vehicle charging and provide access to usage history and data.
- Designed to Scale: Deploy a solution which reduces costly building upgrades in the future and provides a seamless experience for residents.
- NCC Compliant: Our solutions help buildings to meet the current NCC (National Construction Code) compliance forEV charging in Australia.
We're proud to announce that both "OUR Chargers" and"MY Chargers" are operational across several buildings in our partner portfolio. We’ll be releasing individual blog articles on a few of them in the coming weeks.
To learn more about smart EV charging solutions, click here. To speak to an expert and get started with Ohmie GO in your building, please click here.
ABOUT OHMIE GO
Ohmie GO is Australia’s first, and leading, electric mobility platform for buildings, which was founded in 2018. Ohmie GO is building the future of electric mobility and transport in partnership with Australia's most innovative and sustainable players in the property industry, changing the relationship between buildings and mobility.
Media contact: press@ohmiego.com
Ohmie GO unveils OUR Charger and MY Charger
Imagine having access to an electric vehicle, bike or scooter wherever you go – work, home, hotels. That’s the vision of start-up Ohmie GO, which has convinced some of the nation’s biggest developers, including ASX-listed Mirvac, to install “e-mobility” stations in its projects in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Click here to read the full article
ABOUT OHMIE GO
Ohmie GO is Australia’s first, and leading, electric mobility platform for buildings, which was founded in 2018. Ohmie GO is building the future of electric mobility and transport in partnership with Australia's most innovative and sustainable players in the property industry, changing the relationship between buildings and mobility.
Media contact: press@ohmiego.com
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Why your next apartment might come with an EV included in the deal
It started with a simple yet somewhat challenging brief, set by our CEO, to create the best shared eBike experience in the world. This means taking a wholistic view of the experience including the eBikes, the docking and charging system and the end to end app UX.
Partnering with Dutch-Australian eBike brand Lekker gave us the perfect e-bikes to fit our needs, cool, sophisticated and high quality. On the other hand, our team searched the world for a docking solution that also met our needs but simply couldn’t find anything that fit with our vision from a design, functionality and product quality point of view.
What this meant was that if we wanted the best solution in the world our engineering team would need to design, develop and build a solution ourselves. So our team set to work on a docking and charging solution that is simple, beautiful and left users with an outstanding experience, just as we have with our market leading Ohmie GO shared EV user experience.
Our design mission
Bike docking systems usually exist simply for functionality, without regard for design or aesthetics. The aim was to create a product which would be not only a technology leading solution but also visually appealing, from an industrial design point of view, so it could be placed in locations like hotel and premium building foyers.
Founder and CEO, Kyle Bolto said the team spent countless hours and effort obsessing over the details of the docking solution in order to get it right.
“In the same way that household names like Apple and Tesla differentiate their products through both technology and design, we set out to create a step change in design and style for an electric bike docking solution. We’ve named it the eDock,” - explained Kyle
“We thought long and hard about how an e-bike user on our platform would interact with our eDock from an interface point of view. Utilising instructive LED lights integrated into the eDock in conjunction with the Ohmie GO app to help guide users through each step of booking became a key design feature. From the moment you book an eBike on the app, you're met with design components that take you through the experience, with lights flashing when you first book the bike, to a pulsing green light when it’s time to pull the bike out,” - said Kyle
The final product
We set out to create a product which our large global realestate and hotel clients would be proud to feature in the foyer of their gorgeous buildings. In the eDock we have created a solution that is not only state of the art technology but also visually striking, yet maintains a beautiful end-to-end flow with users.
“We know users resonate with products that are not only functional but beautiful, why would shared e-bikes be any different?" - said Kyle
We’re excited to announce that some of our clients have already designed in our new automated electric bike docking and charging solution, eDock, and will be installed and initially offered with Lekker eBikes in some of the most amazing buildings across Australia in 2023.
To learn more about shared e-bikes, click here. To get started with Ohmie GO in your building please click here.
ABOUT OHMIE GO
Ohmie GO is Australia’s first, and leading, electric mobility platform for buildings, which was founded in 2018. Ohmie GO is building the future of electric mobility and transport in partnership with Australia's most innovative and sustainable players in the property industry, changing the relationship between buildings and mobility.
Media contact: press@ohmiego.com
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